


Tomorrow Will Be Kinder

by bee1103



Category: Walking Dead, Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Canon-Typical Violence, Eventual Romance, F/M, Longing Stares, Mentor/Tribute, Super Slow-Burn, so slow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-12
Updated: 2015-03-07
Packaged: 2018-02-12 19:54:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 60,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2122632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bee1103/pseuds/bee1103
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>May the odds be ever in your favor.</p><p>Shy, quiet Beth Greene is District Eleven's tribute and unless she can convince her surly, cold mentor, Daryl Dixon, to have a little faith in her, she'll be dead in a few days.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. District Eleven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So two things: first, this is the first piece of fanfiction that I have written in a long time (read: years) so I'm one hundred percent certain that it's terrible and I'm really nervous about posting it. Second, this is the first I've ever written for TWD so that might be shaky too. Hopefully by the time this is finished I'll be more comfortable with these characters. 
> 
> Okay, a third thing: this is un beta'd so all the mistakes are my own. I usually comb through my work pretty obsessively so if there is a mistake left then it definitely just typed itself in while I wasn't looking.
> 
> Also, if you want to see the photoset that inspired my crazy attempt at writing this it is on my tumblr page: bee1103.

* * *

  **ONE.**

There was light hitting her face. It was pressing against her skin, a cruel wake-up call so early in the morning. _Another moment_ , she begged the sun, dragging her wrist over her eyes and burying her face into her sister’s shoulder blades. Maggie shifted, rolling over, green eyes opening lazily in the early morning sunlight.

“Hey Bethy,” Maggie whispered, careful not to wake their father, still sleeping nearby.

“Hi,” Beth smiled faintly.

She loved moments like these: too early for the District to be awake, before the day could really settle in on them; as if the world was holding its breath. Before long the sirens would call them all out of bed, breakfast would be made, and then they’d go to the fields. It would be a hard day of peach-picking, of bee stings, of hot summer sun. And then the sun would set, and they would trudge back home to their meagre dinners; fall into bed and wait for the whole thing to start over again.

But not today – today there would be no fields, no fruit, no buzzing insects; today they would have the morning free, as if it was a holiday, until noon when they were to report – as they did every year – to the town square and wait.

Wait, in frightened silence, as two names were drawn – two children chosen to leave the District for the Capitol, for the Games.

Today was Reaping Day. 

Everyone in the Districts knew the history. They had been made to listen to the story every year: a century ago, with the world torn apart by chaos and disease, the remaining citizens of what had once been North America banded together to form one Capitol, ringed by thirteen districts. Not long after the formation of this new country, the citizens in the districts grew restless and angry, demanding more authority over their own lives. When the Capitol refused, the districts rebelled. But they were crushed – the thirteenth district completely destroyed by the Capitol’s wrath.

As punishment, the Capitol demanded that every year each of the remaining twelve districts send two tributes – one male and one female, _children_ – to participate in the Hunger Games. It was a death match, only one tribute could become victor and they did so by killing every other tribute. It was power – the way for the Capitol to show everyone that there was nothing they could do, that they had demanded freedom and now had nothing.

For twenty three children, it was a death sentence. It was sickening.

Beth chewed on her bottom lip. She was eighteen now; next year she would be too old, this would be her last reaping. Maggie clutched her hand, pulling it up between them, and Beth could see that she was thinking the same thing: _one more day, that’s all we need – just today._

Maggie had always been lucky. She was twenty-four now, far too old for her name to be in the reaping ball – but she’d gone down to the square every year, same as everyone else, crossing her fingers that it wouldn’t be her name read aloud for all the country to hear. Maggie’s last year had been Beth’s first and so their father had still sat on edge, praying for the safety of his daughters.

So far, his prayers had been answered, but God hadn’t always been so kind. Once, her father had been married to a woman named Annette – not Beth’s mother, who had died bringing Beth into the world – but another woman who had rekindled the happiness in Hershel Greene’s eyes. Annette had her own son, Shawn, who had been the same age as Maggie. But Shawn hadn’t been as lucky as Maggie and when he was fifteen his name was pulled from the reaping ball.

He’d died from a blow to the head four days into the Games while they all watched on the tiny, spotty television in their kitchen.

“It’ll be fine, Bethy,” Maggie hummed, softly, reading her sister’s mind. “It won’t be you.”

Beth nodded. _It could be though_. She had just as much of a chance as any of them – and more than some of them. Each year the number of times your name went in doubled: when she was twelve, her name had gone in once; now that she was eighteen, her name would be in the reaping ball sixty four times. The odds were not exactly in her favor.

But she had to have faith. If her name was called then there was nothing else she could do but try and survive. She was strong, even though she didn’t look it – maybe not in her muscles, but there were other kinds of strength too.

“We should get up,” Beth said with a sigh, unwilling to move from the warmth of her bed, where the Games didn’t exist and she didn’t have to worry about whether she might die in the next few days.

Not that life in District Eleven was a safe haven on any given day either but at least she didn’t have twenty-three people clawing for her blood when she walked down the worn streets of the market.

Maggie brushed her hand across Beth’s forehead, pushing frizzy strands of blonde hair away from pale skin, and smiled tightly – like she was trying to imprint her sister’s face on her memory; like it was the last time they were ever going to wake up like this. With a pang, Beth realized that it might very well be the last time.

“We’ll go pick some wildflowers,” Maggie mused, “braid ‘em into your hair so you look pretty at the Reaping.”

Beth nodded. That was another thing about the Games: even though they were a bloodbath for the people in the districts, they were entertainment for the people of the Capitol and as such, everything had to be treated as if it was a great show. The girls had to be pretty, the boys handsome; the tributes became celebrities in the brief days they spent in the city before being shipped to the arena.

The people in District Eleven called the city Terminus – the end of the line.

The sisters pushed themselves out of bed. It was still early, the sun only barely rising above the trees, so they were content to let their father sleep a bit longer. He was growing weary, age and sorrow beginning to sap the spark in his soul. They had lost Annette only a couple of years ago to a virus that had wiped out almost a quarter of the district. Then a horrifying accident in the orchards had crushed the lower half of his right leg and the doctor had been forced to amputate just below his knee.

Maggie had spent the day crying while Beth had spent the day cutting the right leg of all his pairs of pants so that he might wear them properly when he got back on his feet. One of the market vendors, David, had managed to fashion a metal replacement for him but he’d never quite gotten back to the way he’d been before.

Now, as Beth pulled on her faded pants and a loose sweater, she could see the lines of her father’s face standing out more sharply against his skin. She didn’t want to die but more than that, she didn’t want to die knowing that her father would be heartbroken as he was forced to watch.

Behind the rows of houses where the people of District Eleven lived, there was a meadow that ran along the length of the tall fence that marked the edge of the district. When they were younger, she and Maggie would sneak out of the house and run out to the field to play in the wildflowers. They would sit for hours, making crowns and pretending to be beautiful brides, or fairies, dancing through the sunlight and singing songs that made the birds laugh.

Today they wandered through the long grass, gathering flowers here and there, but there were no crowns and no songs. Today had a melancholy air.

“Would you mind if we stopped at the market?” Maggie asked, a hesitant tone to her voice, as if she felt badly asking.

Beth stopped playing with the piece of grass between her fingers and looked up at her sister. “Of course we can, why would I mind?”

Maggie shrugged one shoulder, “Well, today is _your_ day, Bethy. I don’t want to do something if you don’t.”

What she meant was _today could be your last day_ but Beth didn’t mention that. Besides, she knew why Maggie wanted to go to the market; the market was where _Glenn_ worked. She could still remember the first day she’d realized that Maggie and Glenn were sweet on each other. It had made her giggle and blush, like a much younger child. Now it just made her happy to see the bright smile that would bloom on Maggie’s face every time Glenn was around.

She didn’t think there was any way she’d rather spend her last day than walking through the market with Maggie and Glenn.

* * *

By the time they reached the market street it was already buzzing with people. But despite the atmosphere of chaos there was something heavy in the air, the same weight as every year on Reaping Day. Still, as Maggie scurried ahead of her, weaving through the crowd into Glenn’s arms, Beth felt her fear fade into the back of her mind. 

As the three of them walked through the street, pausing occasionally to look at some item none of them could afford, Beth tried to imagine what tomorrow might be like. If her name wasn’t called then she would be here again, most likely, with Maggie and Glenn. They would be shopping for food though, before the workday began when Maggie would disappear into the orchards and Glenn would take his place behind the counter of his stall. And Beth would head home to her father.

She thought she might like to be a teacher at the school; she would get a job there during the day and come home to her father and sister in the evenings. Eventually, Maggie and Glenn would get married and be given their own little house and then it would just be Beth and her father.

She glanced at Maggie and Glenn walking beside her, hands clasped so tightly Beth wasn’t sure where one of them ended and the other began. It was as if they’d always been two halves of one person and they’d found each other. There was something so beautiful about that.

But Beth had never wanted it for herself. There was too much risk, too much at stake. If she fell in love, got married – if she had a child, that child would someday have sixty-four pieces of paper with his or her name on it in the reaping ball. It wasn’t fair to the child, to bring them unwillingly into this world and then condemn this fate. She wouldn’t do it.

It hadn’t stopped boys from asking her though. She knew she was pretty – all blonde hair, big blue eyes and pale skin – and she was certain that they took her patient rejection as some sort of coy effort to keep them interested, but she had steeled herself against even entertaining the possibility of that kind of life.

Even now, as she watched her sister – so happily in love – and knowing that tomorrow she might be on the train to Terminus, she didn’t regret never letting herself want those things. Imagine how his heart would break if it was her name called; or her heart, if it was his.

No, she was glad she’d remained alone.

It was nearing ten o’clock when Glenn suggested that they head back the house and the rest of District Eleven seemed be thinking the same way as people began to filter out of the market back toward their homes. They would all be required at the Reaping Ceremony, whether they were eligible or not.

Glenn walked the sisters to their door, giving Maggie a quick kiss and squeezing Beth into a tight hug before stepping off their rickety porch and disappearing down the row of houses toward his own.

Hershel was waiting, a breakfast of wild berries and warm buttery bread – far more expensive than they could normally afford – set out on the table. It was a feast and Beth was oddly happy sharing such a meal with her two favorite people, in spite of the ominous feeling in her chest.

* * *

She threaded her fingers through her still damp hair, trying to pull the tangles out as she perched on the edge of her bed. She was stuck on a particularly nasty knot when Maggie came into the room, something pale blue folded in her arms.

“Oh, hang on, Bethy!” She said, dropping the blue bundle onto the bed and pulling Beth’s hair into her own hands. “You’ll end up with none left if you do it like that.”

With the practiced ease of someone who had been doing so for years, Maggie gently combed her way through Beth’s mess of hair, freeing the knots and pulling it into a gentle ponytail that draped over her shoulder – single braid woven in among the loose strands – wildflowers delicately tucked here and there.

“Beautiful,” Maggie hummed after a time. Then, as if suddenly remembering, “Oh, I brought you somethin’ to wear.” And she pulled the blue bundle back into her lap and Beth realized that it was a dress.

“Wow, Maggie, where’d you get this?” She gingerly let her fingers run along the fabric. It was softer than anything she’d ever owned before.

“It was Mom’s,” Maggie replied. “I’ve been keepin’ it since I was little – I think I was hopin’ I’d have some reason to wear it one day but you’re shaped more like Mom than me anyway.”

Beth retracted her fingers quickly, gaze jumping up to meet her sister’s eyes. “Oh, Maggie, I can’t wear this; it’s yours.”

“I want you to have it. Trust me, Bethy, it’ll bring you luck.” Maggie’s voice was sure, so absolutely certain that Beth couldn’t say no. She couldn’t say anything really so she just wrapped her arms around Maggie’s shoulders and hugged her tight.

At least she’d look beautiful on her way to slaughter.

* * *

“Now, we’ll be just over there, all right, Bethy?” her father said, hands gripping her elbows. “You’ll be able to see us the whole time.” She knew he was trying to reassure himself more than her – trying to tell himself that if he just kept his eyes on her, she’d be safe.

She smiled at him, hoping that it would help, but the fear was creeping back in and her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. Beside them, Maggie was gripping Glenn’s hand so hard Beth thought he might have lost circulation in it, but he didn’t let go and Beth was eternally grateful for his strength. Her family would need it. When Hershel stepped back, Maggie leapt forward, throwing her arms around Beth’s neck and crushing her to her chest. She was muttering something that sounded like _everything’s gonna be fine_ but Beth wasn’t sure and frankly she didn’t really trust her voice so she didn’t ask. Instead, she pressed her face into Maggie’s neck and bit her lip to keep from crying.

“I gotta go check in,” she finally said, pulling back from her sister. She tried for another reassuring smile then stepped into the tide of children moving toward the middle of the center square.

The whole place had been dressed up for the occasion with great banners draped across the buildings, the country’s seal on every visible surface. At the head of the square stood the Town Hall where they’d erected a grand stage for the district officials to sit. The Reaping Balls – two great, glass jars, both nearly full up with tiny pieces of paper – stood on either side of a single microphone.

And there, wearing a garish magenta outfit and pale purple wig, her face powdered white and features redrawn, was the escort for District Eleven, Rowan Abernathy. Every year, when the cameras came and the banners were put up, Rowan Abernathy would come out from the Capitol – new ridiculous outfit to show off – to this stage in the center square and read the names of those children damned to the train bound for Terminus.

Everyone knew she was desperate to get a better assignment than District Eleven – this was a place that made corpses, not victors. In fact, there had only ever been one victor from District Eleven and he had just wandered onto the stage in front of the crowd.

Daryl Dixon was cold, mean and unsocial. He lived alone in Victor’s Village, the fancy houses built for the winners on the far edge of the district, but Beth was certain he actually spent very little time there.

She could remember, years ago, she had slipped out of the house one morning just before dawn to pick some winter roses as a birthday present for Maggie, when she had first seen him, walking through the snow on the other side of the fence. He’d been heading back toward the district, as if he’d spent the night out in the woods.

In the years since that morning, she’d occasionally seen him out in the shadows of the trees – but only during the early morning or just before dark – although she’d never mentioned it to anyone. It didn’t feel like her business, telling people what Daryl Dixon did with his time.

Now she watched him carefully as he slumped into the chair with his name on it. He looked hung-over, a state she recognized from the few infrequent occasions that her father had fallen off the wagon during her life. Had her fear not been crowding out all other emotions she might have felt bad for him.

Then his dark eyes swept over her and she felt something icy shiver down her spine. He was appraising them, she realized sharply, assessing strengths and weaknesses – calculating which of them were likely to live or die. She quickly ducked her head. She didn’t need to know what he thought when he looked at her.

Besides, if her name was called they’d be spending plenty of time together over the next few days. That was one of joys of being a victor: you got to be a mentor to all the tributes who came after you. For Daryl that meant watching as a bunch of children were slaughtered. It was no wonder he drank.

As the noon bell rang, the Mayor of District Eleven shuffled onto the stage and pulled out a worn, folded piece of paper. It was the same one he’d read every year since he’d first stepped up to the microphone: about the rebellion and districts and the Capitol’s mercy. Beth tuned it out and found Maggie and her father in the crowd. She gave them an encouraging half smile, tried to show that she wasn’t scared, e _verything’s gonna be fine_.

Then Rowan Abernathy took over, clearly trying to make up for the Mayor’s monotone with her own enthusiasm.

“Happy Hunger Games,” she crowed, “and may the odds be ever in your favor!”

Even the tense mood of the crowd would not deter her. District Eleven might have been the worst assignment she could have ever gotten but she was certainly going to make the best of it, regardless of whether she had to do it herself.

“Shall we begin?” She sauntered over to one of the great glass jars. “As always: ladies first!” With one claw-like gloved hand, she reached into the globe, swirling her fingers around for a few suspenseful moments before whipping her hand into the air again, a single slip of paper clutched there.

Beth held her breath and bit down so hard on her bottom lip she could taste the faint copper of her blood. Her hands were slick with sweat and she was certain she’d grown paler in the last few minutes.

 _It won’t be me_. _It won’t be me._

The crowd drew a collective breath. 

It wasn’t her.

“Sophia Peletier!”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fourth thing: I'm pretty sure everybody will make an appearance in this story although it might not be for awhile. Furthermore, the romance aspect is going to be subtle (hopefully, if I can manage) so if you're not into longing stares and silence conveying love then I wouldn't suggest this story. 
> 
> Finally, yes, this is a Hunger Games alternate universe so I'm also trying to pay homage to that but, that being said, I don't plan on just pasting Beth into Katniss' shoes and rewriting the novel. If you do start to notice that, please tell me! And I have no idea how frequently this is going to be updated - probably not very quickly - so there's that. 
> 
> I'll stop now, I think I have more notes than actual words in the chapter...


	2. The Reaping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beth makes a choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm enjoying writing this, which is weird because I haven't enjoyed writing anything in awhile. Apparently Bethyl just inspires me (as evidenced by the four or five AUs and other Bethyl stories I've got in my brain right now). Thank you to those who have followed or reviewed this - it's so wonderful to know that people are reading and maybe even enjoying this little jaunt. 
> 
> But you don't want to listen to me talk anymore so onward! (Oh, by the way, there's a few lines in here that will be very familiar...keep a look out!)

* * *

**TWO.**

Relief swept over her in a whoosh that Beth felt throughout her entire body. It wasn’t her. She wouldn’t be boarding the train to Terminus – she wasn’t going to die in the arena. Around her, the other girls seemed to sag as well, grateful that they would be staying too.

Except one girl.

Beth watched the thin slip of child that was Sophia Peletier stumble out of the crowd. She was all gangly arms and too-long legs and although Beth had never spoken to her, she knew Sophia was a sweet, if not quiet girl. Quite a bit like Beth in that way, actually.

The crowd was quiet, as they always were when a twelve-year-old was chosen. In all the ways that the Games were unfair, this felt like the worst: the near-assured slaughter of this innocent child. Beth glanced up at the face of Daryl Dixon, expecting to see him calculating her lifespan, but his head was down – the only indication that he’d even heard the name were his hands, spasms fisting them in his lap.

Sophia was halfway to the stage when Beth heard it – a broken wail erupted from the edge of the crowd. Beth turned as a woman with close-cropped grey hair dropped to her knees, shiny tears streaking across her face – Sophia’s mother.

All at once Beth felt something hollow bloom in her chest. This was wrong – this whole thing was wrong. Sophia was walking to her death; there was no way she’d survive the brutality of the other tributes – and they all had to stand here as if they agreed – as if there was nothing they could do.

Except there _was_ something she could do.

The words were out of her mouth before she even knew what she’d said, though they were more whisper than word, “I volunteer.” A few pairs of eyes darted her way.

She moved: a jolted step forward toward the stage, her voice louder the second time, “I volunteer.”

Now everyone was turning, looking at her in surprise. In other districts, where being a tribute was an honor not a death sentence, volunteers were common, but here – she couldn’t recall there ever having been a volunteer from District Eleven.

Sophia had stopped walking, glancing around in confusion; her mother’s tear suddenly choked into silence. Rowan Abernathy was eying the crowd, a frown painted on her face, as if she was unsure that she’d heard anything.

It was so quiet Beth couldn’t understand how she could have missed it but she spoke again anyway, “I volunteer.”

The other children parted before her, giving a clear path to the stage. As she reached Sophia, still stopped halfway there, Beth glanced at the girl who was so much like her.

“Go,” she whispered and Sophia darted off through the crowd, diving into her mother’s waiting arms.

Suddenly, it was as if the sound came back on in the world – or maybe the shock had just worn off – and Beth heard Maggie screaming hysterically behind her. She squeezed her eyes shut tight – she wasn’t going to cry, _I’m sorry Maggie._

Rowan Abernathy was waiting at the top of the stairs, her arms outstretched as if to beckon Beth into a hug. Then her magenta claws gripped Beth’s shoulders and guided her to stand before the microphone.

The fear rushed back to her stomach. _Oh, god – what have I done?_

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Rowan’s voice was piercing and – Beth realized with stab of disgust – excited. “District Eleven’s first volunteer! And what is your name, dear?”

“Beth Greene,” she answered and her voice sounded small, weak. _Good_ , she thought, _let them think I’m weak_. Then she could prove them wrong.

“Let’s give a round of applause to Beth Greene, District Eleven’s first tribute!”

To the everlasting credit of District Eleven, no one clapped.

Silence.

Which says: _this is wrong. We do not agree._

For the first time in her life, Beth was wholeheartedly glad to be from District Eleven – proud of them, even for this small act of defiance – and it strengthened something within her.

After another moment, Rowan’s own applause died out and she trundled over to the second glass jar. There was less show this time – maybe she’d realized that it was better to get through this quickly after all – as she pulled out the first piece of paper that she touched.

“Patrick Martella,” she read.

They’d never spoken but Beth knew his face from school. He was only a bit younger than her – sixteen, she thought – but the horror on his face made him look like a little boy. She watched him push his glasses up the bridge of his nose as he shuffled onto the stage to stand next to her.

She could only imagine what people were thinking as they looked at District Eleven’s tributes – _two more dead bodies_ , mostly likely. She glanced at Daryl Dixon out of the corner of her eye.

He was staring – right at her – with something a bit like curiosity on his face; like he was trying to figure her out; then all at once he noticed her looking at him and turned sharply away from her.

Rowan Abernathy was speaking again but Beth didn’t hear her. She knew what would happen now anyway: for the next few hours she and Patrick would be shuffled into some rooms in the Town Hall where they would be able to say goodbye to their family and friends. Then they would board the train with Rowan and Daryl and be on their way to Terminus. Their last look at home would be through the bullet-proof glass of the train windows.

After that it was only a matter of time.

* * *

When the door opened, Beth only had an instant before she was crushed into Maggie’s chest, rocking backwards on her heels at the force of it. A wave of guilt swept over her then, even as she met her father’s eyes. It had been the one thing she’d worried after: her father having to watch her die, like he’d watched Shawn – Annette – Josephine, Beth’s mother. To put that anguish into his heart again, she had prayed with all her strength to avoid it.

But he wasn’t crying for her. He was just staring, a little blankly, at her shoulder.

“What were you thinking, Bethy?” Maggie asked in a half-shout as she pulled away only so far to look into her sister’s eyes.

Beth shrugged a shoulder and her eyes dropped to the floor. But _no_ , that wasn’t true. She knew why she’d done it: Sophia Peletier’s tiny, scared face bloomed in her mind’s eye and she looked back at Maggie, determination set into the line of her mouth.

“It’s wrong, Maggie – all this, the Games – it’s wrong. That little girl was goin’ to die and everybody knew it – and still nobody was goin’ to help her. But I could – I _can_ – I have t’ _try_.” She realized that her hands were gripping Maggie’s forearms so tight she was leaving splotchy red marks on her sister’s skin.

Maggie looked like she was at war with herself: one half seemed to be begrudging admiration and the other determined anger and despair. Beth didn’t blame her for the second part; Maggie wasn’t stupid, she knew Beth was going to die.

She said as much, her voice dropping into a sad, tired whisper, “You’ll die.”

“I know, but Maggie, there’s so many times we don’t get to change what’s happenin’ around us – what’s happenin’ _to_ us – this time, I could – I can – so I had to…” she trailed off for a moment, she sounded like her daddy. Her eyes to cut to him quickly, but now he was staring at the worn wooden planks of the floor. She looked back at Maggie.

“Every day we step out of the house and we risk our lives – look at what happened to Daddy – we don’t have a choice, the only thing we can choose is what we’re risking it for. I’m probably gonna die in there – I’m not strong like you – but I got t’ _try_ because no matter whether I got a shot to survive or not, that little girl didn’t deserve to die.”

She didn’t sound like herself. Her voice sounded strong, not the frightened girl who had worried over whether her name would be picked from the jar or the shy, timid child who was polite and quiet and never bothered anybody if she could help it.

“We don’t get t’ be upset, Maggie – we all got jobs to do, this is mine.”

Maggie was biting her bottom lip to keep it from trembling, tears welling in her eyes and dripping down her cheeks. She still hadn’t let go of Beth’s shoulders, her fingers digging painfully into Beth’s collar bone. She wasn’t used to Beth being the tough one – had been expecting her baby sister to be a weeping, frightened mess. She turned to look at their father, begging him to say something – anything.

Not that it mattered. Beth had volunteered. There was no going back.

Finally, Hershel looked up from the floorboards but instead of crushing despair Beth saw pride in her father’s eyes. His stiff jaw belied his sadness but he still reached out, pressing his wide hand against the cheek of his youngest daughter. The warmth of his palm was soothing and Beth could only lean in closer to him.

“Be strong, Bethy,” he said, his voice hushed.

“You too, Daddy,” she knew there were tears running tracks down her face. Maggie’s half-swallowed shudder was lost into Beth’s shoulder as Hershel pressed both girls into a tight hug.

Beth’s eyes dropped closed and she wished, desperately _wished_ , that they could just stay like this forever; wished that the harsh pounding on the door would never come; that the guards, in their stark white uniforms, wouldn't pull her father and sister away as they cried out that they loved her; that she wouldn’t be alone in the cold, empty room, waiting for Rowan to fetch her to the train.

Glenn came to see her, which made her inexplicably happy. He pressed his face to her forehead, crushing her against him like she was his own little sister. She made him promise to take the best care of Maggie – reminded him that she liked daisies the best and that the occasional peach, expensive though they were, would almost always soothe Maggie’s exhaustion from the day.

When he left, she sat back in the rickety wooden chair – the only bit of furniture in the room – and waited for the guards to come back for her. She wasn’t expecting anyone else to visit. She had no more family and while she had a few friends at school, Maggie had always been her closest companion; so when the door opened and Sophia Peletier was standing there, Beth bit back a breath of surprise.

She wasn’t alone, Beth realized quickly, noting the protective way her mother was suddenly standing behind her. But Sophia looked a little bit stronger than she had when she’d scurried away from the stage and into her mother’s arms and Beth was glad at least for that.

Sophia walked into the room and Beth awkwardly got to her feet. What did you say to the person whose life you were saving – whose place you were taking in the death march? Apparently, Sophia wasn’t quite sure either.

It was Carol who finally spoke. “We wanted to thank you for what you did – what you’re _doing_ – I don’t know of a single person who’d choose to – who’d do what you did for my little girl.”

Beth nodded, she tried for a smile but it felt too tight on her face. She glanced down as Sophia tugged on her hand, turning her palm over and dropping something shiny onto her skin. “You can bring something with you – from your District – will you wear this?”

Beth looked at the necklace in her hand. The chain was fine and easily breakable; dangling from the end were two thin, flattened pieces of steel, cut in the shape of hearts, one smaller than the other – rough, like most of the jewelry in the District, but as delicate and elegant as anything Beth had ever owned.

“Thank you,” she said, looking at the waif of a girl in front of her, nodding that she’d wear it.

Sophia looked satisfied for a moment and then something odd crossed her face. When she spoke, her voice was certain in a way that Beth wasn’t sure Sophia had ever sounded, “You could win.”

Beth felt the weight of that assertion fall heavily onto her shoulders. _I can’t,_ she thought, _I won’t_. But she couldn’t say that to Sophia, couldn’t press that guilt onto a child. Sophia wasn’t stupid; she knew what would happen now that Beth had taken her place. But maybe it was easier to think that the choice hadn’t condemned Beth to death.

“There’s a lot of us,” Beth replied gently.

“But you could,” Sophia urged. “Promise me – promise me you’ll try real hard to win?”

Sophia’s eyes were so sincere, so hopeful in her belief that Beth had even the slightest chance of ever stepping foot in District Eleven again; it was painful but the thought of crushing that hope hurt so much worse.

She nodded slowly, “I will.”

The thump of knuckles on the door had Carol jumping a bit. It was time for them to go but Beth didn’t want them to – even these near-strangers were better than sitting alone. Something frightened clawed up her chest as Sophia threw her arms around Beth’s waist for a moment. Then Carol was pressing her hands against Beth’s face and pulling her in for a tight hug and then they were gone.

She was alone.

* * *

_We don’t get to be upset_.

She wasn’t going to cry anymore. Crying, she decided, was for people she loved and she’d left everybody she loved back in District Eleven. Besides, she didn’t want people thinking she was a weakling. It was helpful for the other tributes but she needed sponsors to help get her things in the Games – food, medicine, anything she wouldn’t be able to find on her own – and they weren’t going to bother if they didn’t think she was worth it.

When the guards had finally come to take her to the train, the cameras had come with them. It would be a chance for the audience to get to see the tributes up-close, a teaser for the later parts of the show when they’d do interviews and get paraded around Terminus like prize  animals. Patrick had been with her then, as Rowan had loaded them into a fancy car bound for the tracks.

This time she really looked at him. He wasn’t much taller than her, and probably about as wiry. His dark hair was haphazard, as if he’d been running his hands through it frantically. She might have thought that he was cute, younger though he was, if she didn’t know that eventually they would have to try and kill one another.

As soon as they’d gotten on the train, Rowan had felt the need to show them every inch of the space. They could go into any of the compartments, she said, except the conductors’ of course. It almost felt like freedom, but it was an illusion. This was a cage.

Albeit a gilded one, with a luxurious spread of food in the dining car; it was more than Beth had ever seen in her entire lifetime and one glance at Patrick told her the same. She almost asked who else would be eating with them – a meal this size could feed her family, and Glenn, plus probably Patrick’s family with some to spare – but she realized that this kind of excess was common for the Terminites when Rowan sat down and began to fill her plate.

The food was delicious and far richer than anything Beth was used to. Rowan’s voice wasn’t nearly as unpleasant as it usually was at the Reaping and Beth found that if she tried, she could almost pretend that this wasn’t a horrible situation – that she wasn’t being carted off to her inevitable death – and she was just eating a glorious meal for the sake of it.

But like the sense of freedom, this was all just fabrication. Tributes couldn’t be skin and bones when they arrived in Terminus, that wasn’t pretty nor was it beneficial for survival. The Terminites weren’t terribly concerned about the children surviving once the Games really started, but they couldn’t have tributes passing out from starvation in front of the audience. It was poor entertainment.

So they fed them extravagant meals, gave them beautiful clothes, made them look desirable for the audience’s enjoyment, then sat back gleefully as the Terminites cheered on their favorites and applauded when others died.

Beth’s train of thought dropped off sharply when she heard the compartment door sliding open and Rowan’s voice say, “There you are – _finally_.”

There was a decidedly disapproving tone in her voice, Beth noted, as she turned around to find Daryl Dixon framed in the doorway. He didn’t look hung-over anymore, she thought; actually he seemed quite alert as he glared at them all. Beth felt a shiver run down her spine when his gaze landed on her and she realized again that he was appraising her. Not in the way boys used to do in school but in that cold, calculating way he had during the Reaping.

It was unnerving. She looked away and he dropped into a chair on the far side of the table.

“So tomorrow,” Rowan began, chipper attitude back in place, “We’ll be arriving in the Capitol around noon. Then we’ll have a few hours when you two will be with your stylists, getting made-up and then it’s parade time. _That’s_ where we’ll really introduce you to the world.”

Patrick seemed to be paying attention to Rowan at least but Beth had lost interest almost immediately. Instead, she was trying to subtly glance at Daryl out of the corner of her eye, feigning pulling apart a roll as she watched him tear at a chicken leg. He was a bit like a wild dog, she thought; from a distance, he seemed tame – kept to himself, didn’t talk much – but get close and he’d bite your hand off.

She wondered whether he’d always been like that or if it had been because of the Games.

Either way, she felt a pang somewhere in her chest.

“Well!” Rowan’s voice broke into her thoughts again. Beth looked over at the bubbly woman who was daintily placing her napkin on the table and pushing her chair back. “You two better get to bed – we’ve got a big day tomorrow!”

Daryl didn’t seem interesting in moving from the table at all. In fact, he was pouring himself a drink in defiance of Rowan’s suggestion. But Patrick was yawning and Beth realized suddenly that she was exhausted. It was hard to believe that it had only been that morning – a few hours ago – that’d she’d been snuggled in bed with Maggie.

Rowan showed her to her sleeping compartment at the end of the train. There wasn’t much more than a bed and a thin, door-less closet. Beth was a bit surprised to find clothes already on the hangers. They were pretty and they looked soft but something about it made her skin crawl.

How many other girls had stood in this room, looked at those clothes, slept on this bed?

Resisting the urge to vomit up of the rich food she’d eaten for dinner, Beth stripped down to her underwear, and ripping the fancy Terminite clothes out of the closet, hung up her mother’s pale blue dress. She wouldn’t sleep in the bed, she decided, so she bundled the clothing up into a makeshift pillow and curled up on the cool metal floor.

She thought of Maggie then, and her father and Glenn. She thought of Sophia and Carol and her mind wandered to the other people she’d left behind in District Eleven – people she’d never been close with but whom she suddenly missed as if they’d been her best friends. But she wouldn’t cry – _we don’t get to be upset_ – and the faces just seemed to hover at the edges of her vision, lulling her.

She fell asleep with strangely familiar blue eyes on her mind, though in the morning she couldn’t remember whose they had been.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're off to Terminus!
> 
> So remember how I said this was going to be a slow-moving romance? Think of it as glacial. But Beth and Daryl have had like zero interaction with one another ever, in their lives, and takes a bit of time to break that hard-candy coating of his after all.


	3. Welcome to Terminus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Those who arrive...

* * *

  **THREE.**

“Oh, you’ll just _love_ the Capitol – fashion, food, music – and the Tower is just so very wonderful! Honestly, I don’t know why they don’t rent it out the rest of the year; the view is just so magical…”

Rowan’s voice carried down the long stretch of train as Beth slid the door of her sleeping compartment closed behind her. She paused; she wasn’t sure if she could really listen to Rowan remarking on the wonders of Terminus for the next few hours. She could go back to bed, she supposed, but that would mean curling back up on the chilly metal floor and her back was already aching.

Maybe she could explore the train a little; Rowan had said that they were pretty much free to move around and Beth was certain that anything would be better than trying to keep her face blank as Rowan lauded the Games. So, determination in her step, Beth turned away from the sound of Rowan’s voice and started wandering down the long corridor.

Most of the doors in this hallway looked identical to her sleeping compartment and she figured that this is probably where Patrick, Rowan and Daryl were sleeping. The train cars connected seamlessly – no gaps to jump like in the pictures Beth had seen of the old trains in her history books – and in the next car she found herself standing among a significant amount of electronic equipment.

There was a large, sleek television that covered a quarter of one wall and about a dozen smaller boxes around it that Beth thought might have played some of video discs that the Terminites always had: recordings of things, preserved so that they might watch them again and again. The Games were always available on these discs, so that the audience could re-watch their favorite parts whenever they wanted.

Beth grabbed the small remote control, her fingers brushing the smooth buttons, and the television picture suddenly illuminated. With a jolt Beth realized that her own face was plastered on the screen. It was during the Reaping ceremony – but she’d already volunteered, standing up on the stage as Patrick’s name was being called.

She looked scared, she thought, but tougher than she remembered feeling in that moment.

There were numbers scrolling underneath her name at the bottom of the screen; they kept changing each time they passed by – increasing, decreasing – _they’re odds_. She shuddered and dropped the remote. The screen switched off, leaving only the black glass; her pale face reflected back to her.

She had tried not to think about her brother at all; tried not to wonder if she was sitting where he’d sat; touching the things that he’d touched in the days before his death. Had he looked into this same screen and wished to be back home with their parents? Had he been afraid or had he been brave? Would she be able to see him again after she died?

She needed to leave.

Quicker than she’d come into this car, she bolted through the next doorway, not even bothering to look around the new car at all before she hurdled toward the opposite door. This one was heavier, more solid than the others, but it wasn’t locked so she just pushed her way forward.

Suddenly it was as if the world had opened up.

She stopped short as her waist collided with a railing, the only thing keeping her from dropping head-first out onto the tracks. She was outside, actually breathing fresh air, as the train whipped through the unfamiliar countryside. There wasn’t much space out here, only a short platform before the railing.

Enough room, however, that she didn’t notice she wasn’t alone until she glanced around her.

Daryl Dixon was half-sitting on the railing as it curved around to meet the body of the train, a cigarette between his teeth, fixing her with another of his uncomfortable stares. Not the clinical, appraising one, not even the curious one that she’d noticed at the Reaping; this was different somehow, as if he was waiting for something.

“Those will kill you,” she said, without thinking, pointing at the cigarette in his mouth.

He huffed and it might have been a laugh from any other person but derision was laced so heavily through it that Beth couldn’t rightly qualify as such. He looked away from her then and she wondered if he’d seen whatever he was waiting for.

She wasn’t a talkative person, normally, and he certainly wasn’t known for being especially verbose – or interested in people at all, actually – but he was supposed to be her mentor through all this so she figured she’d better start getting comfortable discussing things with him. Problem was she had no idea where to begin.

She needed to know the important things, obviously: should she try to make allies; what was the easiest way to find water; what kind of weapons were easiest for someone her size to wield; how should she act at the interviews – but none of those words were forming on her tongue. She didn’t really want to think about those things at the moment.

So instead she said, “I’m surprised they let us out here; don’t they worry someone’s gonna try t’ jump?”

Daryl didn’t respond. In fact, he didn’t even act as though he’d heard her question; he just kept staring straight ahead, smoking that damn cigarette.

Beth rolled her eyes and turned away from him, muttering, “Or not…”

If he wanted to play the petulant child then fine, he could go right ahead. She ignored the voice in her head that was trying to remind her that she still needed him to answer all those questions; she was perfectly happy ignoring him right back. In fact, if they never spoke to one another, well that just wouldn’t bother her one bit.

Except she _was_ a little curious about him; but _screw him_ , she could manage just fine on her own.

After another moment – and really, it had only been maybe a minute since he’d rudely ignored her question – Daryl shifted off the railing. She watched him, warily. Not that she though he might hurt her, but more like you might watch a strange dog – not frightened, just _aware_.

He took one last breath of his cigarette and then, his eyes cutting to her, flicked the butt over the railing. With a crackle the cigarette seemed to hit a wall and drop back onto the platform at their feet. Beth’s mouth fell open in surprise.

She glanced back up at Daryl. He looked at her then, meeting her eyes, and said in rough, low voice, “Ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

He moved past her – managing to not touch her at all, despite the small space – and back into the train car, the door swinging shut behind him. Beth watched him until the heavy metal closed with a click then her eyes dropped back to the still smoldering cigarette butt.

She bit the corner of her lip and glanced back at the closed door as a new realization dawned on her.

That was the first time she’d ever heard Daryl Dixon speak.

* * *

They arrived in Terminus exactly when Rowan said they would. The train station was located in the center of the city, where all the tracks meet, and it was packed with people by the time the people from District Eleven stepped onto the platform.

Like everything else since the Reaping, this was another show for the audience and more importantly for the sponsors. People had to like you if you expected to get anything from them during the Games. Since her interaction with Daryl, Beth had started to realize that relying on him to help get her sponsors was probably the dumbest mistake she could make.

He was not sociable and he certainly didn’t seem the type to talk her up, which meant she was going to have to get sponsors on her own. She’d tried to think of some way to use what she had to her advantage – sponsors responded to all kind of things: strength, confidence, arrogance, intelligence – she just had to find something. She was sweet, shy and quiet – not exactly the best qualities to survive with.

_What is goin’ on out here?!_

Her father’s voice had rung in her ears and she’d remembered the day clearly as if it had been yesterday; but she and Maggie and Shawn had been so much younger then. Maggie had made her so mad, teasing her about being just a baby, and just to prove she wasn’t Beth has pushed her with all her might, knocking her sister into one of the little muddy ponds that occasionally dotted District Eleven in the spring. Maggie’d gotten so angry she’d dragged Beth in too and they were both hollering so loud that Shawn’d come running, thinking they were drowning. He’d gotten a face full of mud pie for his trouble. That’s when Daddy’d come out, shouting at them all covered head to feet in mud.

And Beth’d just looked right up at him, made her eyes go all big and round, and told him the truth: _We was just swimmin’ Daddy_.

_Just swimmin’_ – and she’d known right then what her strategy was going to be.

So as she stood on the train platform, the Terminite crowds going wild at their arrival, Beth just gave them a shy smile and curled her fingers in a little girl wave. If she could have made herself blush at their frenzied shouting, she would’ve – as it was, she ducked her head, feigning embarrassment instead.

Daryl was standing just slightly behind her and when she turned her bent head, letting her chin touch her shoulder as if she was a smaller child, she could see his whole face. He was looking at her like he always was but this time, his eyes were darting up and down her form and she thought he looked the tiniest bit impressed. She smirked a little – _so he thinks I’m weak too_ ; _good, I can show him as much as the rest of them._

Beth looked away from him and turned back to the crowd, giving them her brightest smile. It wasn’t real of course – these people made her skin crawl with their surgically mutilated faces and garish clothing, calling her name as if she was some great champion – but none of the Terminites knew her pretty expression was false; all they saw was a smiling girl with a delicate face, pale skin and big blue eyes.

She hoped Maggie would be proud of the show she was putting on.

From the platform, they were ushered into a long shiny black car with dark windows that seemed to be meant to hide them from the public eye – strange, Beth thought, since they were all meant to be on display for the Terminites. Still, perhaps it was the mystery of the thing that these people would enjoy; it was, after all, just a game to them.

“…Remake Center, that’s where you’ll meet your stylists for the first time and get ready for the parade tonight,” Rowan explained as the car moved smoothly down the paved streets. Something like this would never survive long on the broken, worn, patchy streets of District Eleven – not that people even needed cars back home, nearly everything important was within walking distance anyway.

The Remake Center seemed to suddenly loom overhead as the car shuttled down a tunnel in the center of the building. Beth had never seen this part on television before; tributes just showed up at the parade looking fresh and lovely but unless you were actually here you didn’t know exactly what the process was. She wondered what they were going to do to her, wondered what they were going to make her wear tonight. The parade was supposed to be a nod to the major exports of each of the districts so the tributes were dressed in something that reflected whatever that was. District Eleven was known for their orchards and in years past, stylists had forced everything from grass-woven skirts to clothes made of strung-together peaches.

She just prayed she wasn’t going to end up half naked.

Rowan led them into the Remake Center which seemed to be made up entirely of long tunnels and industrial factory-like doors. On one side, all the doors were marked with a large white A; the other side, with a D. Beth was about to ask what the letters meant when Rowan stopped abruptly.

“Here we are,” her voice was sing-song-like as she pulled on the handle of the door on her right. “Beth, dear, this is you.”

Beth leaned forward to look into the room. It seemed to be just a small table, covered by a thin paper sheet, and counter of strange, brightly colored liquids along the wall. She glanced at Patrick who gave her a sheepish, half-smile and a thumbs-up before he followed after Rowan to the next door.

As soon as Beth stepped inside, the door behind her snapped shut with a hollow clang. There was no one else in the room with her so Beth stood awkwardly in the center of the space, her hands clasped tightly in front of her.

What would her stylist be like? The only Terminite she’d ever met before was Rowan and she couldn’t exactly say that she’d found much to appreciate there. The stylists were shown occasionally on television during the coverage of the Games but Beth couldn’t for the life of her remember anything about the District Eleven stylists – not even whether hers would be a man or a woman.

After a moment, the heavy door opened again and three Terminites walked in, chatting loudly. They stopped when they found her staring at them, her eyebrows raised. She already wanted to hate them with their bright outfits and silly hairstyles.

Instead she gave them a quick wave, “Hi.”

It was like they’d all suddenly laid eyes on a kitten, the flurry of _aw_ ’s and _isn’t she precious_ seemed to fill the room as they bustled toward her, pulling her against each of them in turn. Then they set about getting her ready for the evening. She couldn’t meet her stylist, they said, until she was at her absolute best, the base, for him to build up from.

Beth stayed pretty silent as the team plucked and pulled and waxed and smothered her skin with creams and perfumes. Her nails were cut and shaped and every speck of dirt was pulled from underneath them. The team undid her hair, which had grown messy from sleeping on it, and washed at least two different soaps into it so that when they had finished drying it, it fell in smooth, soft waves around her face.

“You sit here,” the tallest of the three said, patting the tabletop, “Gabriel will be here in just a few.”

Then the team disappeared back through the door and Beth found herself alone again. She ran fingers over her skin, feeling the stinging smoothness where soft hair had once grown; her nails were trim, shaped into delicate little squares and something in her wanted to bite at them, just to ruin the perfection.

Before she had a chance to do anything, however, the heavy door opened again and this time only one man came in the room. He was tall, with dark brown skin and a clean-shaven head. For a stylist, he didn’t seem to be very fashionable at all, dressed in black pants and a simple black shirt. If Beth hadn’t known that the fabric of his clothing cost more than anything available at their market, she might have wondered if he belonged in District Eleven.

“Hello, Beth,” he said, in a voice that was oddly both gentle and strong at the same time. “I’m Gabriel.”

Beth nodded; of course he was. He didn’t seem bothered by her silence and he approached her slowly, carefully as if he was afraid of frightening her.

“You’re probably scared right now,” Gabriel began but Beth cut him off quickly.

“I’m not afraid.” And she wasn’t. For the first time since she’d stepped onto that stage at the Reaping she could say with absolute certainly that she was not afraid, certainly not of Gabriel. There was something about him that was calming, something that reminded her a bit of her father.

Gabriel grinned just slightly, as if pleased, “I want you to know that I’m very sorry that you have to be here but I thought it was very brave of you to do what you did for that little girl.”

Beth’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. Never before had any of the Terminites expressed anything other than excitement at Beth being in the Games, that it was some great honor and not a death sentence. Gabriel acted like he was genuinely remorseful, as if he actually recognized that this was all a charade to murder children for amusement.

“I understand that you don’t trust me,” he continued, coming to sit beside her on the table, “but I’m here to help in every way that I can. I want to make you everything that they expect, that they want,” he waved vaguely at the walls, “so that when you get in the arena you’ll have a fighting chance.”

Suspicious or not, Beth felt herself trusting him. Maybe she was foolish, a naïve little girl who just wanted to hear comforting words from someone, but whether he was just putting on a show for her or not, Beth would let herself believe him. It wasn’t as much she had much left to lose.

“So what’re we wearing then?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had originally intended for this chapter to cover the parade as well but it was starting to run a little long so I cut it off here. And hey, look, Beth and Daryl had a scene together where he talked...kind of...well, don't worry, I swear the Bethyl-heavy chapters are close at hand but think of this as like the beginning of 'Inmates,' where she talks and he stares at her. 
> 
> Also, a giant thank you to everyone who has reviewed or left kudos or whatever on this story. For my first posted fanfiction in a very long while, it's nice to get such lovely feedback.


	4. The Girl Who Was Made of Sunshine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She wanted to sob - even for Daryl, she realized, because he didn’t believe she had a chance, because his faith had died a long time ago, and it broke her heart and made her hate him.

 

* * *

**FOUR.**

The Amphitheater was awash with blindingly bright colors and such noise that Beth thought every Terminite in the city must have been there. They were sitting on stretches of seats that ran the entire length of the City Circle, cheering and waving madly, waiting for the tributes to ride through on their great chariots.

She was trying desperately not to fidget but the other tributes kept looking at her out of the corners of their eyes – not that she could blame them: her dress _was_ something to look at. Gabriel had told her he wanted her to make a splash, wanted the audience to remember her, but he still wanted to pay homage to her home district. So she’d let him pull her into a short, white strapless dress that hugged her body closely, like a sheath. Then he’d draped another layer of fabric over that, something shimmery and see-through, dotted with large fake peach blossoms, that covered her shoulders and long arms.

The blossoms were all closed at the moment but Gabriel assured her that when they opened she would be a vision that no one would forget.

She wasn’t quite sure how he planned on doing that but at least she wasn’t naked and hadn’t been set on fire.

Patrick came in with his stylist, Alisha, a few minutes later wearing a white suit, trimmed in gold, with a single peach blossom in the lapel of his jacket. Beth thought they looked rather formal, honestly; the other tributes were dressed in things like strategically-placed fishing nets and lumberjack overalls. District Eleven wasn’t known for luxury like District One and it was odd being dressed this way for the parade. Normally, the fancy clothes were saved for the interviews.

Of course, Gabriel didn’t seem to care about _normally_ at all so Beth didn’t question it.

Rowan was flitting around between the four of them, giving compliments and glancing up at the clock every few seconds. Daryl, however, had apparently not deigned to give them the pleasure of his company that evening because he was nowhere in sight and it was clearly annoying Rowan.

“For Heaven’s sake, _where_ is that man?” she huffed to no one in particular.

Gabriel, who had been adjusting one of Beth’s curls, gave Beth the faintest of secret smiles as their gazes met. She was really starting to like him. She’d thought he reminded her of her father – and he did, with his gentle voice and calming presence – but there was something about him that was very much like Shawn too. She’d asked but Gabriel hadn’t known him; this was only his first year as a stylist.

“Are you ready?” he asked, his hands trailing down her arms to wrap gently around her wrists.

Beth took a deep breath and nodded once, letting her eyes close tightly for a moment. She felt Gabriel’s fingers flutter against her wrists, giving her strength. When she opened her eyes she looked directly at him and smiled. He helped her up onto the chariot then, steadying her on the shaky heels he’d put her into.

“Well, it’s about _time_!” Beth looked up. Rowan had her back to the group, hands on her hips, watching as Daryl walked over to them, clearly not concerned by his tardiness – as usual.

He walked right past Rowan without sparing her a glance. He paused at Patrick’s side, looking at the boy’s suit with an eyebrow raised, “You sure this is gonna work?”

The question had apparently been directed at Gabriel, even though Daryl was still eying Patrick, skeptically. The stylist responded, “Absolutely.”

Daryl just nodded then glanced around the group as if looking for someone. He seemed to catch sight of her legs and pause. Only his eyes flicked upwards, taking enough time sliding over her that Beth felt like she might as well have been naked. When his eyes finally met hers, she held them; she wouldn’t show him weakness, wouldn’t let him know he made her feel so unnerved.

Something strange, like a mix of confusion and something else, flashed across his face, before he blinked and it was gone. His expression was as blank and uncaring as it had always been.

“She looks like a fuckin’ china doll,” he growled, actually turning toward Gabriel this time.

“Trust me, she’ll be unforgettable in few minutes,” the other man replied.

Rowan pushed in, “Yes, well, she won’t be _anything_ if people can’t see her and they won’t see her if she’s late.” She clapped her hands together hastily, “Come on, quickly, quickly.”

Gabriel helped Patrick pull himself into the chariot beside Beth, doing a last minute check of their outfits. Satisfied, he stepped back and looked up at them, “Remember: heads up, let them see your faces, and smile like this is the only place you’ve ever wanted to be.”

_That might be pushing it_ , Beth thought bitterly. This was most definitely the _last_ place she’d ever wanted to be but Gabriel was right; her strategy was to be sweet, endearing people to her – she couldn’t stop being bubbly now or people would think it was an all an act.

“You look really pretty,” Patrick said, giving her a shy smile.

She looked over at him, “Thanks.”

She wasn’t sure what to think of Patrick yet. So far he’d been pleasant to her, friendly even. It was strange considering the fact that they were only a few days away from trying to kill each other. The odd thing was it didn’t feel like a strategy either – like he was trying to win her over and then betray her later – he seemed genuinely nice.

There _were_ still good people in the world, after all.

But she had to be careful. You became a different person in the arena. Some of the most vicious tributes had started the Games seeming to be gentle souls. She remembered one boy from a few years back: he’d only been twelve at the time; had told some story about a deer during his interview that melted hearts – he’d shot another tribute in the head at point-blank range a few days into the Games.

Still, until they were in the arena, she didn’t mind having Patrick as an ally of sorts. It felt like having a little piece of home with her.

“All right, time to go!” Rowan was clapping again but the horses that pulled the chariots were so well-trained that they didn’t need to be urged on by anyone. The chariot lurched forward and Beth stumbled slightly on her heels, catching herself on the edge of the cart and righting herself, grateful that people weren’t able to see them yet.

The horses pulled them into line behind the District Ten chariot, moving slowly enough that the crowd would be able to see them clearly and the cameras could catch everyone. The noise, Beth realized, had been dulled by the walls that had stood between them and the great crowd only moments before. Now, it sounded like a roar.

Beth smiled at the people but most of them were too distracted by the glittering costumes of the other tributes to even notice. As the chariot came to about the halfway point up the long drive, Beth saw a group of people waving at her wildly. She raised her arm to wave back to them and that’s when it happened.

The movement of her arm seemed to spark something; suddenly the blossoms on her dress started opening wide, like they were blooming, and they began to glow warmly. The crowd started to notice; she hadn’t thought that the noise could’ve gotten louder but as people began to look at her, the volume of the place seemed to explode.

She glanced up at one of the screens over the heads of the crowd and gasped a little bit; she looked like she was radiating sunlight. It was bright and warm but not so blinding that you couldn’t see her face or recognize who she was.

Beth Greene: the girl who was made of sunshine.

Gabriel had done something magnificent. No one was looking at the other tributes anymore. All eyes were on her and Patrick in their matching sunbeams as their chariot pulled to a stop at the head of the circle. High above them, on a grand dais, overlooking the crowd, stood a single podium, draped with the country’s seal.

After a few moments of wild cheering, Beth and Patrick’s outfits glowing in the evening, a tall man got out of his chair and walked up to the podium. Beth stared at him and something in her chest turned cold. This man was the reason she was here right now; the leader of their whole country.

They called him the Governor.

He wasn’t very old, Beth realized, and he didn’t seem to have indulged in all of the usual Terminite ‘improvements’ – he had wrinkles around his eyes and grey streaks in the smooth hair at his temples. One eye was even covered with a black patch. The rumor was that he’d survived some kind of assassination attempt years ago but he’d lost his eye. Now he wore the patch like a badge of honor.

The darkest part of Beth wished he hadn’t survived.

“Welcome everyone!” He called to the audience, raising his hands to calm them, “Welcome to the 74th annual Hunger Games! I present to you, your Tributes!”

The crowd went wild again as the chariots started moving back around the Circle, heading down the long stretch before they would reach the cover of the stables where they’d started. That was it, over and done with. They’d managed to survive the first event and, Beth noted by the way hers and Patrick’s faces were still plastered on every screen, they’d indeed made a splash.

* * *

“Well done you two!” Rowan crowed when the chariot finally slowed to a stop. Patrick dropped to the ground, letting Rowan proudly put her claw-like hands on his shoulders.

Beth had a tad more difficulty getting out of the chariot but Gabriel was there to give her a hand back down the floor. She was smiling and she was surprised to find that it wasn’t forced; Gabriel’s design had been spectacular all right, and she could tell that the other tributes were staring at her again. This time it was with a little more envy and perhaps with more respect.

Daryl, on the other hand, seemed to have retained his pessimism about the whole affair because he wasn’t looking particularly excited. He appeared to be somewhere between indifferent and begrudging but Beth couldn’t figure out exactly what and he wasn’t looking at her at all so she couldn’t even hope to glean anything from his gaze.

Rowan was, unsurprisingly, still talking, “I can’t tell you how many people asked about you two tonight. Every few minutes it was someone new! I gave them your names of course, did my best to tell them exactly how wonderful you two are – I mean, I wasn’t sure exactly _what_ strategy we were going with,” her eyes cut to Daryl who was picking at a fingernail, “so I had to do the best I could. But the sheer fact that they were talking about you is a good thing!”

Beth had to hand it to her: annoying and mindless as Rowan was, she seemed genuinely concerned with helping her tributes succeed in any way she could. She wasn’t Gabriel, of course, who didn’t pretend that the Games were something they weren’t – but she was trying, in her own way, to make things easier for them. It made Beth wonder, actually, what Rowan really thought of the Games after all.

“Thank you,” Beth said, interrupting Rowan’s stream of speech about how she’d spoken to someone or another about Beth volunteering. The older woman paused, a little surprised, and smiled at Beth in a way that actually seemed natural. It was like Rowan had never been thanked before.

Her voice was softer when she spoke, “Well, it is my job.”

“So we gonna go eat or what?” Daryl’s rough voice trampled all over the moment.

Beth rolled her eyes – she seemed to be doing that a lot around Daryl Dixon – and Rowan huffed in annoyance but apparently determined that the mentor was not wrong. She led them through another long tunnel that opened into a wide, industrial-like room. In the midst of the concrete, running through the middle of the floor was a railway. This, Rowan explained off Patrick and Beth’s expressions, was for the monorail that would take them to the Tower where they’d spend most of their remaining days in Terminus.

They only had to wait a few moments before a railcar came hurdling from the far end of the room and slowed to a stop in front of them. Rowan led them all on, chatting animatedly about how lovely the Tower was and how it was so wonderful to be working with Gabriel and Alisha. Beth tried to pay attention, had decided that she would make more of an effort for Rowan than she had been, but she wasn’t terribly interested in anything Rowan was talking about.

She was hungry and her feet were starting to hurt and Daryl’s surly attitude was annoying her. At the moment he was leaning against the side of the railcar, completely disinterested in the rest of the group, scuffing his shoes on the floor as if he couldn’t wait to be rid of the whole lot of them. It made her irrationally angry.

He was meant to help them, to guide her and Patrick through this whole process; he’d been here before, that was the point. He was supposed to be giving them strategies, things that would help them win over sponsors but, at this point, only Rowan and the stylists seemed to be doing anything on their behalf. Though Beth was grateful for their help, they were Terminites, regardless of whatever else they were, and they had never been in her position, not like Daryl had.

Beth glared at him. He had no idea, of course, because he was looking at the floor, but she let her eyes drill into the top of his shaggy head, willing him to feel her frustration and annoyance. She wanted him to help; wanted him to care what happened to her, what happened to any of them.

She wanted to matter to him.

The railcar pulled into the lowest level of the Tower where all the other tributes and their teams were milling around, waiting by the elevators. Rowan bustled through the crowd like a proud mother peacock, leading her flock, managing to snag an elevator car for them alone; Beth was glad for that, the other tributes were appraising her again and her mood was making it difficult to stand them all staring.

“Each district has a floor to themselves,” Rowan was explaining as she pressed the button labeled _11_ and the elevator lurched upwards.

Beth was standing closer to Daryl now but she hadn’t stopped glaring at him out of the corner of her eye. Part of her wanted him to snap at her, to do _something_ , but that would mean he’d have to notice and it seemed that she wasn’t even on his radar. That just made her angrier.

The suite was everything that Rowan had described it to be: grand, with a wide lounge whose floor dropped down into a low seating area around the television; a hallway on the right seemed to lead to bedrooms; there was a dining area on the left and a great glass dining table. Beth could even see a balcony on the far side of the room, probably protected the same way as the train had been.

They ate another grand meal at the table, Gabriel, Alisha and Rowan filling most of the time with companionable conversation. They seemed sincerely interested in life in District Eleven and Patrick indulged their questions with the occasional comment from Beth. She was still too ruffled to do much more than eat and nod when Patrick turned the conversation to her.

Daryl was sitting at the end of the table, as far away from the rest of them as possible without actually moving to a different room.

She had no idea why, but it suddenly just felt like too much.

“So,” she burst out, interrupting whatever Patrick had been saying, her eyes focused solely on Daryl. “How did we do?”

It was clear to everyone that Beth didn’t expect an answer from anyone other than the man sitting at the end of the table, staring at her through his hair but Patrick still tried to respond, “Beth –”

“No,” she snapped back. “No, I wanna hear what he’s got t’ say about it. He’s meant to be our mentor, right? Well?”

Daryl leaned back in his chair, still staring at her, but he didn’t answer.

She continued, icily, “How’d we do, Daryl? ‘Cause Gabriel and Rowan and Alisha think everythin’s goin’ real well, think we made a real big impact.”

He chewed on his bottom lip for a moment and Beth thought he’d continue to ignore her. Then, rocking forward to pick up his glass, the clear liquor swirling within, he leaned his elbows against the table and replied in a low voice, “Pretty dress ain’t gonna make a lick a’ difference when there’s an axe in your back.”

He still thought she was going to die – was so convinced of it that she wasn’t even worth his help, his interest. Her jaw snapped shut.

“Screw you,” she bit out, pushing herself to her feet and slapping his glass out of his hand. It fell to the tabletop, shattering and splashing liquor over everything. Everyone was shouting as she spun away from the table only to be hauled back around when someone caught her arm.

Daryl was looking at her, fingers closed tightly around the thin bones of her wrist, blue eyes wild and furious. _Well damn_ , she thought petulantly, _he does have feelin’s_. He wasn’t speaking though, just staring her down. She didn’t flinch; she wasn’t afraid of him – _he_ was the coward, not her.

The others were still fluttering around the table, trying to clean up the mess; Beth was certain they weren’t paying any attention to her or Daryl, still standing there, each waiting for the other to make a move.

“Let go a’ me,” she finally hissed.

His hand seemed to leap away from her skin he dropped her arm so quickly, something startled and ashamed in his face for an instant before the anger returned. He still hadn’t said anything. With a growl of frustration, Beth whipped away from him and stormed down the hallway to her room, glad that Rowan had shown it to her earlier so she wouldn’t have to try every door and ruin her dramatic exit.

When she collapsed on her bed she half-expected her anger to fly out of her; whenever she’d been angry at Maggie or Shawn or even her parents, it had never lasted long, gone as quickly as it had come. But she was still seething; it was as if Daryl had crawled beneath her skin just to annoy her.

She kept telling herself that it didn’t matter – she could live or die on her own; she didn’t need him – but his callous nature seemed to make everything worse. Here she was, a few nights away from her inevitable death, in a city where people would soon be cheering for her bloody demise, trying to grasp onto any bit of hope that she might see her family again, and he couldn’t even be bothered to look at her for more than a moment.

She curled herself into a ball, wanted to just lay there for the rest of her short life; wanted to cry and cry until there wasn’t a single tear left in her body. She wanted to sob for herself, and Patrick and Shawn for dying when they deserved to live; for Maggie and her father for being left behind again; for Sophie Peletier who would probably be here next year anyway; for Gabriel whose beautiful clothes were the only help he could give her.

Even for Daryl, she realized, because he didn’t believe she had a chance, because his faith had died a long time ago, and it broke her heart and made her hate him.

But she didn’t cry. She had to be strong: training was starting tomorrow and she needed to show everyone that she was more than just some bubbly blonde girl in a pretty dress.

Pretty dresses, after all, don’t matter at all when there’s an axe in your back.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey look more Bethyl interactions, granted they aren't of the happiest variety but Daryl's such a bitter man that even someone made of sunshine isn't going to thaw that cold heart for a little while. It's a good thing Beth's all determined to hate him! 
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who has reviewed and favorite or kudos'd or whatever this story!


	5. The Training Center

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beth and Patrick discover hidden talents and try to impress the Game-makers...

* * *

 

**FIVE.**

Beth shifted awkwardly back and forth on her feet, picking at the clinging material of her training uniform, trying not look as nervous as she felt. It obviously wasn’t working, she realized when Rowan placed a calmig hand on her upper arm and gave her a gentle smile.

But this was the terrifying part – at least, terrifying up to this point – this would be the first time she’d get to see the other tributes in action, see their skills and let them see hers – which she seriously lacked. What exactly was she supposed to do during training anyway? What was her strength: because it certainly wasn’t physical.

Not for the first time did she wish that Daryl Dixon wasn’t such a complete ass; preparing them, discussing training options with them was supposed to be his job. But he hadn’t managed to leave his bedroom at all that morning except to grab a bottle from the bar before disappearing again. Rowan was still annoyed, Beth could tell, but the older woman hadn’t said anything about it that morning.

It was odd, Beth thought, but Rowan almost seemed to pity him.

Certainly, Beth knew, it must be difficult for him to come to Terminus every year with two new kids only to watch as they were slaughtered. But that didn’t mean he had to be a complete jackass all the time. It didn’t mean that he had to write her or Patrick off without even speaking to them.

Her boiling blood helped mask some of the nervousness fluttering around her stomach. _Well_ , she thought, _if it helps, I can just spend the whole Games thinkin’ on how much I hate him_. As the elevator dropped to the lowest levels of the Tower – the Training Center – Rowan turned around to face Beth and Patrick.

“Now, I know you haven’t gotten to talk to Daryl much about this –” Beth let out an unfeminine snort of derision, “– but here’s what I’ll suggest: during training, stay together – both of you, even if it seems strange – the other tributes can’t fight you yet, but they’ll try intimidating you just the same; sticking together makes you a united front so it won’t be so bad. Also, whatever it is you’re good at, don’t show the other tributes: wait until your private sessions for that, try some survival lessons first.”

Beth had a sneaking suspicion that the only strength she _had_ would be just _surviving_. She knew enough about plants and herbs, especially the medicinal kind that her father sometimes used to patch up cuts and bruises, but she’d never set a trap in her life or eaten anything that hadn’t been purchased.

Beth nodded once as the elevator doors opened and Rowan stepped aside to let them out. The other tributes were already there, dressed exactly as they were, with their district numbers on their backs. Rowan wished them luck and then headed back upstairs as the head trainer gathered the tributes in a circle at the center of the room.

“Welcome to the Training Center. As you know, there will be two days of training: today you’ll be expected to work with the coaches to hone your skills; tomorrow, you will be able to demonstrate those abilities for the Game-makers in your private sessions. Note that there is no physical contact allowed between tributes but there are assistants available at each station to practice with,” the tall woman explained, her blonde hair pulled away from her face, leaving a few curls to frame her cheek bones.

As the tributes broke up, Patrick turned to Beth looking as completely lost as Beth felt, “Where should we go?”

Beth wanted to say _home_ , that they should just run as far and as fast they could because there was no way they were going to survive. The other tributes looked like they each had about a hundred pounds on both Beth and Patrick. One boy, who Beth thought looked about her age, had a sneering, pointed face, and watery eyes – rat-like – but he threw the spear in his hand so hard that it took off the training dummy’s head.

She gulped and tore her eyes away from the other tributes, focusing instead on Patrick and ignoring the way his face had gone a little green. There was no one at the knot-tying station, so she shrugged and they wandered over.

The assistant seemed genuinely pleased to have some students and spent the new few hours teaching them how to tie basic, but strong knots, and set simple snares that could help them catch rabbits or squirrels in the arena. By the end of it, Beth had even managed to learn a quick snare that had Patrick up and dangling by his ankle from a rafter.

Since neither Beth nor Patrick had ever handled a weapon before, and since neither of them really knew what they were good at, they figured trying to learn some basics wouldn’t be a bad thing. Patrick was actually decent at hand-to-hand, mostly because he was spry enough to stay away from his opponent. Beth was surprisingly handy with an axe but only if she didn’t have to throw it or hit a target more than once. Her first swings were usually pretty good but she couldn’t for the life of her hit the same spot twice.

Of course, she figured that one axe blow to the head would probably be enough for any of the other tributes but she didn’t mention that.

She was curious what the individual sessions would be like. They weren’t filmed and they were meant to be kept private so that both sponsors and the other tributes wouldn’t know exactly what everyone could do before the arena, but that meant that Beth had no idea either. Daryl could have probably told her but asking him was not likely to yield anything more than a grunt in response.

“You want to grip lightly but firm, don’t tighten your fingers too much,” the trainer rearranged Beth’s hand on the knife hilt. “The important thing is not to let go: flesh and bone have a tendency to hold onto that blade more strongly than you might expect and if you have more than one opponent you don’t want to be caught with your knife stuck in some body and not your hand.”

Beth paled a little as the instructor demonstrated the various arm swings that would cause fatal injuries: up, under the chin; round, into the side of the neck; down, in the top of the skull. Patrick was looking uncomfortable too, holding his knife limply in his hand, as if the sheer thought of doing such things to another human being had sucked the strength right out of him.

At least, that’s how she felt.

_But I gotta try_ , she reminded herself, even as the knowledge that she would probably have to do this in a few days made her want to curl into a ball and cry.

After her father’s accident, he had been unable to return to work in the fields, the long hours put too much strain on his good leg for him to be much use; but Hershel wasn’t the kind of man who enjoyed spending his time sitting while everyone else was working. He’d been antsy as soon as he’d been able to walk again, desperate to pitch in some way.

It had been Maggie, Beth remembered, who had suggested that Hershel take the few skills he’d gathered tending to the health of the animals in the District and use them to start patching up people too. The District had an actual doctor but unless there was a serious emergency, he was too expensive for most of the people to see regularly. Hershel didn’t have the same quality medication as the doctor, but he had plenty of homeopathic remedies and he charged significantly less.

Eventually, people in the District started coming to him for just about everything, from simple illness to the violent, broken mess of wounds that were so common among the field workers. Young though she was, Beth had done her best to help out whenever Hershel had a patient but more often than not she’d be the one holding the children or the loved ones while her father desperately tried to stop the blood from gushing or the fevers from eating up a person.

He’d lost patients and she’d cried herself to sleep after every one.

She felt that same sense now, watching the instructor drive the knife blade into the head of the training dummy.

Patrick tried to mimic the movement but the knife point just bounced off the synthetic skin. The other tributes had been keeping their eyes on the two scrawny kids from District Eleven who’d made such a show at the Parade the night before, curious if they had the skill to match the bravado; now they were snickering.

Patrick chewed the inside of his cheek and looked at her, “I don’t think knives are really for me.”

Beth gave a small smile, trying to encourage him but all she could hear was the laughing from the other tributes – the rat-faced boy from District One leading them – and it made her grit her teeth in frustration. This was why District Eleven had only ever had one victor: because they weren’t all psychotic violent killers who’d been hand-picked from infancy and trained up. Rat-Face had probably never gone a day without food, a day without someone taking care of his every need. Beth might not have lived as some of the poorest in District Eleven had but she certainly hadn’t been pampered her whole life.

So why should it be that Rat-Face was more likely to win then her?

She was so tired of all of them thinking she was going to die: Daryl, Maggie, Rat-Face, the people who’d calculated those odds she’d seen over her face on the train – she gripped the handle of the knife tighter, her mind on a mad dash of frustration.

She didn’t want to be scared, shy, quiet little Beth Greene that everybody in District Eleven liked ‘cause she’d never given them a reason not to – she wanted to _change_ , to be tough, to survive. She wanted to keep her promise to Sophia Peletier – _try real hard to win_.

She rolled her shoulder, her arm swinging, her knife slamming with a satisfying _thwack_ into the top of the dummy’s head, burying up to the hilt.

Her fingers shook as she stepped back. Patrick’s eyes were darting between her and the knife embedded deep in the dummy skull, his face a mix of shock and maybe a little fear. His look made her stomach turn – no one had ever looked at her like that, like maybe she was killer after all – but the other tributes had stopped laughing and Rat-Face was scowling at her instead.

“Wow, I thought you said you never used a knife before?” Patrick asked his voice awe-struck.

Beth realized she was breathing heavily, tried to calm down, “I haven’t.”

Patrick glanced warily at the other tributes, now watching them with interest again, “Maybe we should try somethin’ else? How ‘bout camouflage?”

Beth eyed the others, recognizing something frighteningly hungry in Rat-Face’s expression – it made her feel desperate for a bath – and she nodded at Patrick, grateful to get away from the people staring at her like she was either their next meal or something else – something worse.

That night, as she collapsed, exhausted, into bed, those faces came back to her, burned behind her eyelids. Once they were in the arena, there were no rules except survive, and as she recalled the look in Rat-Face’s eyes, a new stone of dread landed in the pit of her stomach.

He would be coming for her.

* * *

 

“You nervous ‘bout your session?” Patrick asked as they sat in Training Center cafeteria. They were eating lunch and waiting as individual tributes were called in to demonstrate their skills to the Game-makers.

In a few minutes, it would just be her and them, alone in the training room; they would watch her, judge her abilities and then give her a score. The better the score the more likely sponsors would be to invest in her. She was itching to get through it all and be away from this place.

Patrick, it seemed, had recognized Rat-Face’s expression the day before as well because he seemed more determined than ever to keep Beth away from the combat stations where the District One and Two tributes tended to congregate. Beth had been grateful but seeing as how neither she nor Patrick was particularly skilled with any weapon, she’d eventually had to urge him to let them practice at the weapons stations.

They called the girl from District Ten for her individual session then, dragging Beth’s brain back to the present and Patrick’s expectant face.

“Oh, um, yeah,” she shrugged. “A little, I guess. Are you?”

Patrick mimicked her shrug, hands absently playing with the pieces of bread he’d turned into building blocks, “I don’t know – maybe. I just wish we knew what they expected us to do.”

He definitely sounded nervous to Beth. She pressed her palm to his hand, trying to be comforting. “I’m sure you’ll do fine. You’re a good fighter.”

He gave her one of those sheepish smiles, “Nah, I’m not as good as you.”

Beth reeled back, surprised. “Me?”

Patrick nodded, “Yeah, you’ve got this toughness about you. I mean, I don’t think I would ‘a ever volunteered for anybody.”

Beth smiled, ruefully, “I just think that means I’m a little crazy.”

He shook his head, “These people, they see that as strength – that’s why District One and Two are always doin’ it. Besides, everybody thinks you’re gonna do real good.”

A little wrinkle formed between Beth’s eyebrows. “ _Who_ thinks I’m gonna do good?”

Everybody _she_ talked to seemed to think she was going to die.

“Rowan, Gabriel – even Alisha’s said so,” Patrick answered, his voice sincere and a little surprised – like he expected her know that they thought this about her.

Suddenly aware of the blush in her cheeks, Beth tried to play it all off, “Well, that ain’t everybody – Daryl’s convinced I’m gonna bite it in the first ten minutes.”

Patrick waved his hand absently, “Nah, he’s just worried ‘bout you.”

Beth’s eyebrows rocketed into her hairline, “ _Worried_ about me?”

Patrick shrugged again, as if it were obvious, nodding.

“Daryl Dixon _ain’t_ worried about me, Patrick,” she replied, incredulously. “He couldn’t care less what happens to me.”

Patrick grinned a little, “Whatever you say, Beth – look, it don’t matter anyway, ‘cause you got a real chance here. You could survive. You’re smart – which I know a lot them don’t think of ‘cause you got all that blonde hair and those big doe eyes – and you know how to survive. I saw you when we got off the train, all giggly and waving like a shy little kid. They all think you’re this sweet thing and that just means you can get up real close before you stab ‘em in the eye.”

Beth choked a little on the imagery, remembering the knife from the day before. It was unnerving to hear him talk about how strong she was, how there was some chance that she might be able to survive all this.

“You gotta chance too, Patrick,” she started but he shook his head, cutting her off.

“Nah, I’m probably gonna die real quick,” he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I just wanna see my family again, y’ know?”

“Yeah…” she trailed off, Maggie’s face filling her head again. She wanted to tell Patrick that he had just as much of shot of going home as she did but then the trainers were calling his name and he was leaving for his individual session with the Game-makers. She managed a quick _good luck_ before he disappeared into the other room, leaving her in the cafeteria with only the two kids from District Twelve sitting on the other side of the large room.

She sighed. Her nervousness, temporarily displaced by her conversation with Patrick, slithered back into her stomach. She drummed her fingers on the table, counting the minutes he’d been gone, trying desperately not to vomit, her mind grasping for anything but thoughts of her roiling insides.

Patrick’s comments drifted back to her then. She flushed, thinking how certain he was of her survival. Even she didn’t have that much confidence in herself or her abilities. The other tributes, some of them were twice her size – had been fed well and trained since they were just kids. Technically, it was against the rules for tributes to come in with previous training but it happened every year regardless.

She didn’t really stand a chance, no matter how hard she could stab a knife.

And imagine: Daryl Dixon being worried about her.

If Daryl Dixon thought anything of her, it wasn’t worry.

She waited in silence, tearing up the bread that Patrick had been stacking on his plate, her mind spinning unable to settle on one thing, before the trainer appeared in the doorway again, calling her name.

The training room had been mostly cleared, reordered so that there were weapons along the sides of the walls without cluttering the middle of the room. High above, on an elevated dais, were the twenty or so Game-makers, all chatting and picking at plates of food.

They looked down at her as she entered.

One man, with smooth brown hair and round, thin-framed glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, stood up, a notebook tucked between his hands, “Welcome Beth. I’m Milton Mamet, the Head Game-maker. I’m sure you’re probably curious as to what you’re in here to do.”

Beth nodded. There was a door beneath the dais where Milton Mamet stood, closed at the moment, but Beth was certain she could hear something scraping, shuffling against the metal behind it.

Mamet continued, “In order to give you a score befitting of your skills, we need to see you preform. In a moment, you’ll be expected to show us exactly what it is you can do; we’ll record your scores and they’ll be reported during the broadcast this evening.”

The scuffling was getting louder; Beth’s fingers started to shake, fear curling in her chest.

“You may use anything in this room to demonstrate your skills to us,” Mamet finished, his arm sweeping over the weaponry. Beth bit her lip – _she heard a moan_ – she’d expected that they’d just ask her to throw some spears or climb some ropes; this seemed entirely different. 

There was something waiting on the other side of that door, waiting for her.

Almost painfully slowly the metal barricade began to rise. Her fingers clenched into her palms, digging enough to be painful. There were feet, then legs – the clothing torn, fraying and patchy – then a body, arms and grabbing hands; finally, the skeletal, gaunt face and white, senseless eyes.

She gasped in horror. She’d heard about the mutations, the _Walkers_ – Terminite experiments, used during the war with districts – they were violent, thoughtless, killing-machines; unstoppable but for death. They’d been human once, she knew, but humanity had been driven out of them, replaced by an insatiable need to tear and rip through skin and bones.

The creature lurched toward her, arms outstretched, fingers clawing for her. She leapt backwards, her feet slipping from beneath her. She landed hard on the ground, the monster upon her, gnashing his mouth at her, hungry for her blood.

She threw her forearm up, pressed it against the creature’s neck, holding him back from her face.

She had to do something else; she wasn’t strong enough to keep him at bay for much longer. She swung her leg out, blindly, felt it connect in a sickening crunch with his knee; then she dropped her arm and ducked sideways, out of his path as he pitched forward, her arm no longer holding him up. She dashed to her feet, crashing against the weapons tables.

He paused for only a moment then turned, his jolting steps bringing him close again. She scrambled, risking turning her back on him to grab for a weapon, but she didn’t have enough time to consider her options before he grabbed her shoulders.

She screamed – she couldn’t help it – as his face appeared over her shoulder. Her hand flew up to his throat, trying awkwardly to keep him from sinking into her flesh. Keeping her eyes on the monster, she reached out with her other hand, desperately feeling for a weapon. Her fingertips touched on the smooth wooden handle of one of the knives and she pulled it into her grip.

Swinging her arm the same way the instructor had showed her the day before, Beth buried the knife deep into the side of the Walker’s head. With a hollow moan, the thing slumped forward, dropping all of its weight against her back. She heaved it off, her hands coming away slick with gore and black blood.

Her breathing was ragged as she stared down at the Walker, lying on its back with a knife stuck in the side of its head. The sound of clapping filled her ears and she glanced up at the dais. Milton Mamet and the other Game-makers were all politely cheering at her success.

She glared at them. What exactly were they thinking, setting Walkers on the tributes? What happened if someone wasn’t fast enough to kill it? Some of the kids were not even strong enough to hold up the weapons, let alone use them. Walkers were mindless killers, what happened if one ripped the tribute apart?

Then she noticed the chain around its neck – long enough that he would be able to get to her anywhere within the training room, but strong so as to pull him back if need be – and, she saw looking closer at his open jaws, he’d had his teeth removed.

It was nothing more than a frightening show.

“Very well done, Miss Greene,” one of the other Game-makers said. Beth clenched her jaw, anger simmering beneath her skin.

“You may go now,” Milton Mamet said absently, already scribbling notes in his journal.

Beth didn’t respond, didn’t thank them for their consideration, didn’t even look at them for a moment longer; she merely turned, stepped over the corpse of the Walker and stalked out of the training room.

* * *

“You’ve got nothin’ to worry about,” Patrick said, his voice low and quiet, close to her ear. They were perched on the edge of the couch, waiting to hear their scores. At the moment, the program was busy recounting everything that had happened in the last few days – from the Reaping up through the Parade.

Beth wasn’t sure though. The Game-makers were looking for strength, and while she’d managed to kill the Walker eventually, she’d gotten pretty lucky. If she hadn’t been able to kick her leg out or if he hadn’t stumbled…and Walkers were mindless; the other tributes could think, would recognize when she was about to move, anticipate possible outcomes. The Game-makers were looking to see how the tributes fought on the fly, but the scores that they gave would be based on whether or not those skills would serve when fighting other humans.

If it had been a tribute in that room with her, instead of a Walker, Beth would probably be dead.

But she gave Patrick a small smile, trying not to belie how nervous she was. The broadcast was playing clips from the Parade but this time Beth could hear the voice of Caesar Flickerman, the Hunger Games’ announcer, at exactly the moment that her dress exploded into a sea of light. To say that he was impressed would have been an understatement.

Rowan clapped her hands, gushing again about how wonderful Beth and Patrick had looked that night, congratulating Gabriel and Alisha as Caesar returned to their live feed to explain – as if everyone had forgotten – what the tributes had been doing in the days since the Parade.

“Just this afternoon,” he said, “the tributes had the chance to show the Game-makers exactly what they could do – now, of course, we can’t show you any of that – _but_ any moment now we’ll be getting in the scores from those sessions.”

Caesar flashed brilliantly white teeth at the screen. He’d been the announcer for the Games for as long as Beth could remember, and probably longer still. He would also be hosting the interviews during the final pre-Games event tomorrow night. Despite essentially being the face of the Games, Caesar always seemed to make an effort to help the tributes along during their interviews. Beth thought that this was more likely his desire for a good show than out of any real concern for the tributes but, nevertheless, he tended to ease some of the tension with light jokes and laughter.

Beth stopped paying attention to Caesar, however, when Daryl walked into the room. He wandered over to the bar, grabbing a bottle of something amber-colored, and settled against the corner of the wall, busying himself by peeling the paper seal off the top. He looked as if he’d only come out to grab a drink, but he was taking an inordinate amount of time to open it – plus, he could just do that back in his room – and Beth realized, with some surprise, that he was sticking around to hear the scores.

She wouldn’t have gone so far as to accuse him of _caring_ but perhaps he was a little curious after all.

She turned back to the television screen as Caesar began to read off the scores. The tributes from Districts One, Two and Four, predictably had the highest scores – mostly nines and tens out of twelve. Rat-Face, whose name apparently was Randall, apparently, had scored a ten. The other districts had lower scores, some sixes, some eights. One tiny girl, with blonde hair and a cute, pudgy face, had impressively scored a seven.

“I remember her,” Patrick said, pointing at the little girl. “She was watching us all through training yesterday.”

“I wonder how she got that seven,” Rowan mused, more to herself than anything but Beth silently wondered that as well.

Finally, it was their turn.

“From District Eleven, we have Patrick Martella with a score of six,” Caesar said, Patrick’s face appearing on the screen.

Gabriel, Rowan and Alisha all clapped, patting him on the back and congratulating him. Six was a good score – it told sponsors that he was likely to fair well enough on his own that he might be worth investing in, but it didn’t put a target on his back either. He’d probably be dismissed by the other tributes which put him out of a lot of the danger.

Patrick was embarrassed, “All I did was leap and hop, trying to stay out of that thing’s way. It wasn’t that impressive.” But he was grinning proudly despite himself.

“Also from District Eleven, we have Beth Greene with a score of nine,” Caesar continued.

Beth’s jaw dropped. The others in the room were quiet, surprise clearly evident in their expressions: skinny little Beth Greene, receiving a _nine_?

“Well done, Beth!” Alisha crowed.

“Wow,” Patrick breathed.

Beth couldn’t help the smile that blossomed on her pale face. She looked at Gabriel who was grinning proudly at her. Patrick still looked like he couldn’t believe he’d heard anything of the sort and Rowan was bouncing about, chattering excitedly about how she’d known from the _very start_ _that you two were going to be special_.

Beth couldn't resist then: she had to see what _he_ thought.

Daryl was still leaning against the wall, head down, face veiled by his over-grown hair. She wouldn’t have guessed that he’d even heard any of the scores, except that his hands had stilled on the neck of the bottle and she watched as his fingers seemed to clench for a moment, then ease.

She wanted, desperately, for him to look up; wanted to see what was in his eyes – would they still be those cold, walled-off crystals or would he finally see that maybe she wasn’t dead weight after all?

But he didn’t look up. He just pushed himself off the wall and went back down the hallway, Beth watching him the entire way.

She didn’t turn until she heard the click of his bedroom door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I really - really - wanted to keep this story to strictly TWD characters in the HG universe, unfortunately, I could not - for the life of me - find a character who was enough like Caesar that his/her position as host of the Games made sense without making the character wildly OOC. So Caesar stays but he will definitely be the only THG character to make an appearance in this story. 
> 
> Also, I hope you liked the little twist of the private training session - initially, I wrote the scene really mirroring what happens in the novel but to do so, I had to make Beth like a knife-throwing savant which just made no sense. Her skill is really her determination not to die, after all, so I changed some stuff and made it more TWD-like. Don't worry, the walkers will be back later. 
> 
> Finally, thank you so much for all the support you've given me. I really am having fun with this story! And I'm sorry that this chapter is so Bethyl-lite. Originally, I had a scene between them where Beth is yelling at him but it seemed too much like her last outburst at him and it was definitely too much like a scene that's coming up so sadly, you'll have to wait for another honest to goodness interaction between them...I warned you it would be glacial.


	6. Collision

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A horrible thought rushed from her throat before she could stop it: “If this is how you were with my brother, it’s no wonder he died.”

* * *

**SIX.**

Beth stretched her back, pain shooting through her lower spine. She’d spent the entire morning with Rowan, practicing walking in the ridiculously high heels that Gabriel wanted her to wear during the interviews, and now everything from her shoulders down was sore. Apparently being able to help do something other than get them places on time made Rowan happy – but happy-Rowan was also determined-Rowan and determined-Rowan was like a slave driver.

They’d worked for hours on how to walk – with a little sway to the hips to help with balance and because _it makes your butt look excellent, don’t forget that_ – then how to sit, without falling over or stumbling into the person sitting next to you, and particularly how to go from sitting to standing without toppling head-first into the front row of the audience.

Beth appreciated it, of course, but she was tired and sore and she really just wanted to lay down for the rest of the day. Sadly, in only a couple of hours Gabriel and Alisha would arrive with interview outfits and then it would be down to the Amphitheatre again for the interviews and the broadcast for the whole nation.

She wandered into the lounge, half-expecting to see Patrick sitting on the couch or turning the furniture into some kind of make-shift fort – he always seemed to be absently building things, like it was just something his hands did when he wasn’t paying attention to them.

Except Patrick wasn’t in the lounge, Daryl was.

Beth rolled her eyes before she could stop herself: Daryl was slouching on the sofa, bottle dangling from one hand, a cigarette tucked into the other.

The bottle, she noticed, was half-empty.

“You seen Patrick?” she asked, glancing around the room in case she’d missed him sitting in some corner.

“Nope,” Daryl replied, voice low and slurred.

He was drunk; _great_.

She turned her back on him then, hands on her hips. _Don’t say anythin’ Beth, it ain’t your place_ , she chided, but she couldn’t help the mutter that escaped, mostly under her breath, “Real helpful.”

Daryl had better hearing than she’d given him credit for, apparently: “What’d you say?”

She thought, for a moment, about just ignoring him; about walking back to her room – Patrick was probably in his room anyway – and leaving Daryl Dixon to drink his damn self into a coma; but she didn’t do any of that.

She rounded on him, a deceptively sweet smile on her face, “I said: _real helpful_ , you bein’ drunk – like we couldn’t use your advice or anythin’ right now.”

Daryl huffed, pushing himself to his feet and tossing his cigarette. He looked relaxed, as if he’d take her comment in stride, but his eyes, Beth realized, were the same frigid cold blue she remembered from the night she’d knocked his drink out of his hand.

He took a step toward her and Beth reckoned he wasn’t anything like the wild dog she’d first thought; no, he was more cat, all slinking smoothness, a true hunter through and through.

And right now, she was in his sights.

“Y’ want my advice?” he asked, voice low and dangerous. “Run and hide, little girl; find a hole and wait to die, ‘cause it’s comin’ and it ain’t gonna be pretty.”

He was close enough now that she could reach out and touch him if she wanted. Her temper flared.

“Do you feel _anythin_ ’?” she asked harshly, glaring at him. “Does any of this _matter_ to you? Yeah, okay, you think we’re gonna die – I get that –“

He remained predictably silent.

She scoffed, “Maybe we are, hell we _probably_ are – I know it, Patrick knows it – Rowan, Alisha, _Gabriel_ , they all know it too, Daryl! We ain’t stupid, but at least they’re tryin’, at least they’re doin’ something ‘sides sittin’ round, _wallowin’_ ‘cause everythin’s _shitty_ and pretendin’ like nothin’ matters!”

A horrible thought rushed from her throat before she could stop it: “If this is how you were with my brother, it’s no wonder he died.”

Daryl tensed up suddenly, his eyes alight, pointing at her face in anger, “Don’– that ain’t the same.”

“Yeah? ‘Cause Shawn _trusted_ you,” she jabbed her index finger into his chest, “– but you couldn’t be bothered, right? We’re all gonna die anyway, ain’t that your belief?” Tears were starting to prick the corners of her eyes but she didn’t brush them away.

“That what you really think? That I jus’ sat back and let ‘im die?” Daryl’s voice wasn’t that frighteningly low sound anymore, now it was cracking, breaking like a wave.

Beth tightened her jaw, “That’s what I _know_.”

“You don’ know nothin’,” Daryl snapped, whipping around and chucking the bottle at the wall. It shattered, amber liquid splashing on the crisp white paint. He spun back around to her, fury in every line of his body, “What’d you want from me, girl, huh?!”

Beth pushed back, desperate, “I want you stop actin’ like none of this matters to you – like nothin’ we’re going through means anything – like the people who’ve died here, in this place, don’t matter! It _matters_. I _matter_ – and I want you to stop pretendin’ I don’t just ‘cause you’re _afraid_!”

Daryl took a step, so close to her now they were nearly touching, “I ain’t afraid of nothin’.”

She ought to have stopped, but she couldn’t. “I remember: the year Shawn was here – my Daddy said that you’d always tried, you always did your best. He said Shawn had a chance ‘cause ‘a you but he was _wrong_ , ‘cause Shawn still came home in a box – just like all the rest of ‘em – and you – you came home an’ drank. An’ I felt _sorry_ for you, ‘cause I knew you were missin’ them too! But now – _now_ it’s like God forbid you ever give a crap about anyone ever again! What’s the point, right? It don’ matter – so you just sit an’ you drink and you don’ even try anymore!”

He pressed forward again, “You think you know everythin’, huh? Little miss sunshine and rainbows – flowers in your hair! None ‘a that shit matters one goddamn thing in there – none ‘a these dresses or smiles – no matter how many people fuckin’ love you – it don’t mean a fuckin’ thing – all that matters is that they are bigger an’ stronger an’ faster than you and you are gonna _die_!”

“You _don’t_ know that!” she shouted.

Something strange curled into his eyes – something broken beside the fury, “Might as well, ‘cause you ain’t never gonna be the same! All that sunshine and shit – that’s gone! You don’ get to come back, get it?! You survive and next year, you’re sittin’ up here while some other kid’s down there getting’ stabbed t’ death – that little girl you volunteered for, might as well a’ stayed home, lot a’ good it did – she’ll probably be here next year – dying just like the rest of ‘em!”

Beth felt like her heart was breaking: Daryl Dixon, who was such a jackass, who stared at her and judged her, who didn’t give a damn about her, was a mess – a shell of a man, empty and broken and lonely. He was the last man standing, always had been – no matter how many kids he coached up, no matter how many sponsors he’d found or deals he’d made, he was still alone.

Maybe he’d been happy once, maybe he’d had dreams and faith, maybe he’d even smiled – but that was gone now. That was the cruelty of the Games, after all. It was death and violence and the slaughter of children, but the loss of innocence, of humanity, she thought that might be worse.

For Daryl, it was.

He was breathing rapidly, still so close, and she wanted to touch him. She wanted to reach out to him, to hold him up when she was certain he was about to fall. She didn’t really blame him for Shawn, never had, and he needed to know that – needed to let her lift that guilt off his chest. Her voice was softer and tearful as she reached for his arm, “Daryl – “

He pulled away from her, “Don’ touch me! Just leave me the fuck alone! Stop starin’ at me with those big fuckin’ eyes like I’m s’posed to fix all your goddamn problems – like I’m s’posed to _save_ you or some shit!”

He reeled back, swung away from her, anger still edging his movements. She wanted to tell him that she didn’t need saving – that _he_ did, and she wanted to help him, she was here to help him. She wanted to catch his arm and hug him close, press her cheek against his chest and show him that she cared – because, suddenly as if it were a bolt of lightning, she knew she did care about him, in the strangest of ways. He was broken and she was good at healing things.

But she didn’t because he was walking away, toward the hallway, leaving her standing, hollow and deflated, in his wake.

Her voice was flat when she spoke but it caught him for a moment: “I can make it,” she insisted, glancing at him through her tired tears, “I’m not like you, or _them_ , but I _can_ survive.”

Daryl didn’t respond, didn’t move but to stare at the floor, something akin to shame flushing his face for a moment. Then his gaze hardened, his voice cold, “I hope you don’.”

Then he was gone. And she was alone in the empty lounge.

Beth was sure that Rowan or Patrick must have heard them fighting but no one can to check on her and she was glad of it when her struggled breaths became sobs, choking her. She pressed her hands over her mouth, tears rushing with abandon down her cheeks now.

Her strength left her and she sank down to the tile floor, a mess of blonde hair and pale skin, and she cried for him.

* * *

 

Beth stared at her reflection with empty eyes. The dress was beautiful, of course – another white gown, this time with a skirt that flared out at her waist, ending just above her knees. The pink peach blossoms, already open, were pressed along one shoulder and in a diagonal across her front. She looked the picture of innocence and sweetness.

She wanted to smile, to show Gabriel how lovely she thought it was, how grateful she was of his attempt to make her shine – but she felt like there was a weight on her chest and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t push it off.

“I would ask if you’re nervous,” Gabriel began, moving to stand in front of her, “but I don’t think that’s the problem.”

Beth didn’t want to tell him about her fight with Daryl. She’d cried herself out after a time, pulled herself to her feet and gone back to her room. Gabriel and the prep team had shown up not half an hour later to scrub her down and remake her; it should have distracted her, but all it did was remind her of Daryl’s words – that nothing she was doing would matter one bit in the arena. And his voice, as he’d admitted that he hoped she would die, it was like a needle in her already bruised heart.

She didn’t need Gabriel knowing about all that, about how she feared his hard work would all be for nothing, but something about the care in his voice and sincerity in his expression made it rush out anyway, “Daryl thinks that Patrick and I are gonna die tomorrow.”

“Ah,” Gabriel sighed and dropped onto the edge of Beth’s bed, patting the spot next to him for her to join. When she sat down, he took one of her hands between his, holding it gently, delicately, his thumb running a calming trail across her skin. It was in moments like these that she was reminded so strongly of her father, who had listened to her cry for an hour about finding a dead rabbit and how she could only think of its family, back in their hole, waiting forever.

Gabriel was the same now, patient, giving her a moment to decide whether to keep talking; letting her sit in silence, if that’s what she preferred. He didn’t push, just kept running his thumb over her hand.

After a moment, Beth continued: “He’s hopin’ it happens,” her voice sounding more like that of a small child than she’d ever heard it before. “He says you don’ get t’ come back from this – from the Games – that you’re not the same person anymore.”

Gabriel nodded softly, then after a moment, he said, “I’m sorry you have to be here, Beth. I’m sorry that Patrick has to be here – that Daryl had to be here – none of you deserve this.”

He didn’t say that he agreed with Daryl – he didn’t have to.

Beth felt herself choking up again – _but we don’t get to be upset_ – so she bit hard on her lip, “I wanna go home. I wanna see my family again but if I do that means I’ll be here next year, tryin’ to keep some other kid alive.”

Gabriel squeezed her fingers lightly, “An unjust system.”

She looked up at him, searching his eyes for something, some answer to a question she could barely breathe out, “What am I gonna do?”

She wasn’t even sure what she was asking. Did she want to know because she was afraid she wouldn’t survive – or because she was afraid she would? Did it matter either way? Could she really do as Daryl _advised_ : to find a hole and wait to die? She knew what Maggie’d say – that she was crazy, foolish for thinking that way when there was even the slightest chance that Beth might live; but Beth and Maggie had always been so different…

Gabriel pressed a hand to the side of her face, drawing her back. His touch was soft but his voice was determined, as if he could suddenly read her spinning thoughts. “Well, tonight, you’re going to get up on that stage and you’re going to smile and twirl and when they ask you questions you’re going to tell _me_ – not them; and tomorrow, when that cannon goes off, you’re going to try your hardest to survive and you are going to have faith that Daryl Dixon is going to do everything in his power to bring you home, safe and whole.”

_Safe and whole_ , not broken like him, not scarred. _We all got jobs to do_ : his was to bring her home; hers was to survive, like she’d promised Sophia. She might die – was probably going to – but she’d told Daryl the truth: she _could_ make it.

Beth smiled, small though it was, and felt some of her heartache seeping away.

“Now,” Gabriel said, getting back to his feet and pulling Beth up with him, “let’s get this dress finished – you can’t impress people with half an outfit.”

“Does this one shine, too?” she asked, brushing the material with the tips of her fingers.

Gabriel grinned, that same secret smile he’d shown her at the Parade, “It’s special in its own way.”

Beth narrowed her eyes at him, mockingly suspicious, and Gabriel chuckled, “Trust me.”

“I do,” she replied, earnestly.

“Good,” he said, pulling at a pin in the back of the gown, “just don’t forget to twirl.”

* * *

 

“And here’s your host, Caesar Flickerman!” the announcer’s voice boomed over the crowd, as people erupted in wild, raucous cheers.

Beth watched as Caesar strutted out onto the stage, dressed in a midnight blue suit that sparkled as if a thousand stars were stitched into the material. His hair was a similar shade of blue and the hot, heavy lights of the Amphitheatre seemed to shine off the top of it; it all made her eyes hurt.

The Amphitheatre itself had been redecorated for the night’s show: where the chariots had once driven now there were hundreds of rows of seats filled, nearly to claustrophobic closeness, with Terminite citizens, dressed in their finest. The colors and patterns clashed horribly but not a single person seemed concerned with each other – all eyes were on the stage, waiting, chatting, excited to see the tributes.

Each of the twenty six of them would have three minutes with Caesar. He would ask questions, make jokes, anything that would help build up the tributes in the eyes of the sponsors. This was the chance for the tributes to really pull out their strategies – would they be sexy, surly, psychotic, arrogant, innocent…?

Being from District Eleven meant that she and Patrick would be near the end, so they would have to wait in the wings for a while as the others spoke; Beth only hoped that the audience wasn’t bored by the time it was her turn.

She pulled on the hem of her dress, trying to peak through the thin curtains that partially hid the tributes from the audience. Part of the game was to give the crowd enough of view to entice them, but not ruin the grand entrance of any tribute, so the curtains weren’t thick or heavy but some shining, shimmering material that did more to distort than actually hide.

The floor seats were broken into three sections, with the most influential sponsors and Terminite officials sitting in the middle. The section closest to the waiting tributes, however, was where the mentors, stylists and escorts sat. Their close proximity to the stage was thought to help calm the tributes but when Beth’s gaze dropped to Daryl sitting in the second row she felt anything but relaxed.

He didn’t look as if he’d been affected by their fight at all. He looked bored and disinterested as usual; where the other mentors and stylists gave nods or waves to the cameras as they passed by, Daryl remained stoic.

She understood, now, what was probably going on in his head – had understood before too, even though she’d let her anger get the better of her; knew why he’d started calculating the life expectancies of the kids at the Reaping. She’d done it too, hadn’t she, when she’d decided that Sophia wouldn’t make it? Or like Patrick, calculating his own odds and claiming Beth to be the more likely survivor?

That’s what the Games did to people.

Caesar finished his welcome to thunderous applause, and then turned, with arm outstretched, toward the waiting tributes. “First, from District One –“

The girl was tall, blonde, and the dress she was wearing scooped so low in the back that Beth was embarrassed for her. She glanced at Patrick, who was grinning dumbly after the girl just like all the other boys as if weren’t obvious what strategy this girl was going for.

In what felt like moments, the buzzer rang and Caesar blew kisses to the girl as she swayed across the stage. Twenty six chairs had been set up there, on a section of the platform that sat a step lower than the rest – here was where the tributes would sit after their interviews so that the audience could keep watching their favorites the entire time. The girl spun perfectly down into the chair, the edge of her dress falling away to show a scandalous amount of her thigh.

Predictably the audience went wild as the camera inched its way up her exposed skin.

Beth shivered in disgust and bit her lip.

Randall was up next. He spoke with a voice that was like slime, oozing and suave but with an undercurrent of madness. There was something frightening glinting in his eyes too – the same craving for blood and chaos that she’d seen during training.

The Games had only occasionally had serious psychopaths – one boy turned cannibal after a few days and not for lack of other food – but the Game-makers didn’t typically let it get too out of control. The audience wanted champions made of fortitude and brutality not psychosis. They buried the cannibal in an avalanche after he picked apart a twelve-year-old.

Randall, however, seemed like just the right amount of sane that the Game-makers wouldn’t do anything to stop him. His madness would be inflicted on the other tributes but he certainly didn’t look the type to eat anybody once he’d hacked them to death.

The other interviews seemed to rush by quickly. Both the girl and boy from District Two were as haughty as Randall and the first girl, but not nearly as crazy. The kids from District Four were twins, which was unusual in itself and were both oddly quiet which made Beth unaccountably nervous.

“So tell us, Mika,” Caesar leaned forward in his chair, elbows resting on his knees, “how on earth did you manage to get that seven?”

It was the little girl that Patrick had recognized from training, the one who had apparently been watching them the whole time. She really was just a tiny thing, smaller even than Sophia who’d been all arms and legs. Mika still had pudgy cheeks and innocent eyes and a childlike smile.

“I’m really good at running,” Mika replied, clearly proud. “If they can’t catch me, they can’t kill me.”

Caesar laughed and the audience cooed at Mika’s cuteness but something in Beth’s chest felt tight. Running could only get you so far, eventually you would have to kill or you would die, probably horribly.

She looked at Daryl through the curtain again and blinked in surprise: he was staring right back at her – or at least, at the distorted version of her masked by the veil of material. She glanced away, chewing on her lip.

He made her feel so strange; angry enough that she could shout at him until her voice gave out but at the same time, everything about him seemed to be reaching toward her.

None of it made any sense at all.

“Now, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome, the stunning, the lovely – the girl made of sunshine – Beth Greene!” Caesar’s voice startled her out of her thoughts. For a moment, Beth forgot what she was meant to do and she blinked awkwardly until Patrick gave her a gentle shove toward the stage.

With a shake of her head to clear her thoughts, Beth took a deep breath and stepped purposefully into the audience’s view. The cheers only seemed to increase when they finally saw her so she gave them a little wave and smiled as sweetly as she could. Caesar met her halfway and took her hand to help her sit down on the plush, round chair in the center of the stage.

“My, my, don’t you just look wondrous, Beth!” Caesar sat back in his chair, exaggeratingly impressed.

Beth giggled, “Thank you!”

Now he pressed closer to her, grinning, “And this is the second spectacular dress you’ve been in since we met you.”

“Oh yes,” she flattened her hands against the bodice. “Well, Gabriel just does an amazin’ job!”

“He certainly does! When you came out in that dress the other night, shining like the sun, I swear my heart stopped,” Caesar’s hand went to his chest dramatically.

Beth nodded; at least she could be sincere about this, about how much she loved the dresses that Gabriel made for her, “Mine too.”

Caesar leaned forward again, his voice low as if sharing a secret with her, “Tell me, is this one as magical as the other?”

Beth pressed her forehead close to Caesar’s, grinning despite the choking in her throat at his cologne, “Well, I’m told it’s special in its own way. Would y’ like to see?”

The audience erupted with shouts of _yes_ and _show us_ ; Beth got back to her feet – _twirl_ , that’s what Gabriel had told her to do – she looked down at him, sitting patiently beside Daryl. He nodded once, encouraging her. She took a breath; let her eyes fall closed and imagined being back in the meadow with Maggie. The way they’d danced through the summer heat, arms outstretched and heads back, soaking in the freedom of the afternoon – she felt the warmth again, as if her sister were standing beside her.

She twirled, her skirt spinning out around her legs. The audience gasped in awe and then their mad clapping began again, wilder than it had been before. She stumbled to a stop, shoulder jolting into Caesar’s chest. He caught her, gracefully, helping her sit back down. She put a hand to her forehead, giggling again as if the rush was just too much for someone as delicate as her.

The video screens all over the Amphitheatre were replying her twirl and Beth realized why the audience had gone crazy: her dress wasn’t shining like it had at the Parade, a continuous brilliant light; when she twirled, the whole thing shimmered, sparkling, lighting her up, dancing along her collar bones, making her fair hair look white. She looked like some heavenly creature, as if her skin was just a vessel for the light inside of her.

She looked magnificent.

Gabriel had done it again. The crowd was a mess of cheers and clapping; Caesar was clutching at his chest again, a hand flying to his mouth as if her beauty had brought him to tears. Beth smiled for the audience, her eyes skating down to the rows of mentors and stylists, wanting to silently thank Gabriel for the magic of his design.

Except her gaze didn’t find Gabriel, it found Daryl Dixon.

Daryl, who was staring up at her, eyes wider than she’d ever seen them, something like awe written on his face; she was too far away to make out the emotions swirling in the blue of his irises but he was looking at her as if she really was some kind of celestial being and it made her flush.

She tore her eyes away, looked back at Caesar. He was complimenting her again and she was grateful for the distraction from the fluttering in her stomach, “My goodness that was simply unbelievable! You, my dear, truly are a vision to behold!”

Beth giggled, dropping her chin in embarrassment.

“My, my,” Caesar continued, his tone changing slightly, “Well, Beth Greene, the girl made of sunshine, you certainly have made an impression on everyone here in the Capitol: at the Parade _and_ in training – a score of nine! That is a very good score!”

Beth smiled, half-shrugged, “I try my hardest, is all. I don’t wanna be just another dead girl.”

Caesar chuckled but it sounded a little brittle, as it always did when tributes had the gall to remind people exactly what was going to happen in the arena. “Well, we certainly wouldn’t dream of accusing you of being that at all!”

She bit her lip, as if to stop herself from grinning; the audience loved it.

She knew it had to be getting close to the end – this was usually the point when Caesar would ask the _big question_ , the one that struck emotional gold with the audience. The host wrapped his fingers around her hand, pulling it off her lap, taking it between both of his.

She was aware, suddenly, of the sharp contrast between this moment and the one she’d shared with Gabriel earlier. The stylist had made her feel relaxed, calmed her nerves; Caesar’s touch put her on edge, made her skin crawl.

“Let’s go back, Beth, to that moment at the Reaping, when you volunteered for that little girl: what was going through your mind?” His tone was sincere, curious, but Beth could see the hunger in his eyes – he knew what this answer would do to the audience.

_Well, Caesar, I didn’t want her to die a horrible, painful, sadistic death at the hands of another child, so I volunteered to die for her_.

Except she couldn’t say that; she looked at Gabriel, his eyes gentle, soothing – he nodded – _tell them part of the truth._

So she did: “It was her momma – her momma was cryin’ and I just thought _I wish there was somethin’ I could do_ – somethin’ that would keep that little girl here, with her momma. I just didn’t want them to be split apart, y’ know? We all got jobs to do; I figured maybe this was mine.”

Caesar squeezed her hand, “She came to visit you, didn’t she, before you left?” Beth nodded, “And did she say anything to you?”

The audience held their breath.

“She made me promise to try real hard to win.”

Caesar didn’t even wait for the crowd to react before he went for it; the kill: “And what did you say?”

Beth’s jaw tightened, her eyes flicking first to Daryl – she wanted him to hear this as much as anyone else – then directly into the camera, for the whole world to know that she wasn’t afraid of them.

“I told her I would.”

The Amphitheatre exploded into sound. Caesar was up on his feet, thanking her, pressing kisses to both her cheeks, giving a bow then holding his hand out for her to curtsy, “Ladies and gentlemen, Beth Greene: the girl made of sunshine! And sunshine she certainly is!”

Beth managed to make it all the way over to her chair, still giggling and smiling, without tripping in her heels. She dropped as gracefully as possible onto the cushioned seat, trying not to let the audience catch her sigh of relief.

It was over. The last hurdle before the arena and thanks to Gabriel she had literally shined for the audience. She wanted to slump against the chair but she forced herself to sit upright, waving to a few audience members who were still watching her.

Then she caught sight of the other tributes in the row next to her. There were no smiles on the faces of those staring her down.

The District Four twins were eying her with interest and the two kids from District Two were practically bearing their teeth and growling at her. But it was Randall who made her shiver, who made her look away quickly.

It was Randall and the unabashed, disturbing lust snaking through his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yes, I totally bastardized some of their fight from 'Still' but there were just too many good parts of that to ignore - plus, that's pretty much what inspired this whole story and I like using some dialogue from the show here and there. 
> 
> Also, I loved writing the fight, it felt so cathartic after all the silence between these two. The interview was way more difficult to write and I don't like that scene as much as the first two but alas, it had to be done. 
> 
> Finally, as always, thank you so much to everyone who is reading and commenting and enjoying this story so far. It's been a ride up to this point, I hope everyone will keep hanging on!


	7. Last Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beth can't sleep. Neither can Daryl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the inordinately late update on this chapter - this week has been crazy busy for me.

* * *

**SEVEN.**

Beth couldn’t sleep.

 _Tomorrow_ , her brain chanted, again and again. Tomorrow, she would be in the arena; tomorrow, she would be one against twenty three; tomorrow, she would have to survive, to kill or be killed. She could see every tribute, even the ones whose names she couldn’t remember – see their faces, hovering, like ghosts, at the edge of her vision, like a vice grip on her consciousness.

She kicked the blankets off her feet, rolled onto her side, tucked the pillow up – none of it helped. Shawn had been able to sleep anywhere at any time, a skill that came in handy for him during the Games; but Beth had always had too many thoughts for her own good. Maggie used to say it was because she didn’t talk a lot – her external quietness leading to the cacophony inside her head.

But now Maggie’s face was among the specters in her mind’s eye – Maggie, and Glenn, her father, Sophia, even Daryl’s face appeared, all blue eyes and scowling frown. She flopped over to her back again, staring, unseeingly at the ceiling.

 _Go to sleep, Beth_ , she chided, _you need t’ be good tomorrow_.

Even logic couldn’t stop the thoughts chasing each other through her brain. With a huff, she swung her legs over the edge of the bed, digging the heels of her hands into her eyes. The room was too dry: the air manufactured and unnaturally cool for this time of year. She hated it.

Like everything else in Terminus, it was false; it was something that some _person_ had decided was the best – the best look, the best age, the temperature, the best style, the best taste – but it wasn’t real. She missed the real air of District Eleven, with its overbearing moisture and summer weight; she missed the real food, the real _people_.

She couldn’t sit in bed anymore.

The lounge was dark as she crept in, determined not to wake the others with her restlessness. The balcony door opened with the slightest tug and she took a deep breath as the unaltered breeze filled her lungs and rushed through her hair.

From here, the city looked peaceful; not quite beautiful, certainly not in the same earthy way that District Eleven was beautiful, but there was definitely an appeal, even if she didn’t understand it. She’d expected the Terminites to still be awake – to be partying in the streets until dawn in honor of the Games – but the city was as quiet as it could be: the only sound, the odd hum of all the electrical power surging through the city.

Beth missed the cicadas of District Eleven, the occasional owl.

 _Lord_ , she wanted to go home. She wanted to walk through the meadow again, weave her fingers through the tall, dry summer grass. She wanted to stroll through the market, see Glenn’s face smiling at her from behind his stall, holding Maggie’s hand – the others too, the people she’d thought of as acquaintances, who now felt like family she just hadn’t yet had the chance to know. She wanted to be back in school, with the kids, leading them around like a mother duck, singing them silly songs she made up that made them giggle.

That always used to make her father smile, tell her she was exactly like her mother.

 _We don’ get t’ be upset_ , she reminded herself once more, _we gotta be strong._

She felt, rather than heard, someone moving behind her. She sighed. It was probably Rowan, come to tell her to go to bed – _you’ve got a busy day ahead of you_ – but she wanted just a few more minutes outside, in this false freedom, with the memories of home.

She glanced up as Daryl appeared beside her, a glass in his hand, and leaned against the wide concrete railing. He stood away from, his eyes on the cityscape, ever silent. When he didn’t look over at her, Beth figured he didn’t want to talk, and she was content to stand in silence so long as he let her stay for just a bit longer.

She was surprised, then, when he dropped the glass he’d been carrying onto the railing in front of her and shifted a little awkwardly on his feet.

What exactly was he doing? Giving her a drink? She’d never had a drink before in her life, always avoided the stuff on account of her father’s bad history with alcohol. But here was Daryl, seemingly offering one to her, without so much as an explanation. 

Then it struck her: he was trying to initiate conversation, maybe even trying to apologize. Maybe he didn’t hope she’d die after all? Or maybe he did but either way, she realized, he was _trying_.

It sparked something irrationally happy in her chest.

She grinned a little and couldn’t resist teasing him, “This supposed t’ be an apology, Mr. Dixon?”

His eyes cut to her, his voice only slightly sheepish, “Moonshine.”

Beth looked down at the clear liquid in the glass, sniffed it delicately. It didn’t exactly smell like it would be appetizing but Daryl was making an effort toward friendliness – as unconventional as it might have been – and she didn’t want to ruin his attempt at an apology, certainly didn’t want to seem to reject it, so she shrugged her shoulders and took a small sip.

It burned something fierce down her throat.

“Ugh, that’s the mos’ disgustin’ thing I ever tasted,” she said, half-coughing and half-laughing.

Daryl chuckled and Beth was so surprised to hear the sound that she nearly started choking again, staring wide-eyed at his profile, silhouetted by the lights of the city.

Suddenly aware that she probably looked a bit like a deer, all shocked large blue eyes, an expression she just knew would make him uncomfortable – maybe even make him retreat from her – Beth tried to focus elsewhere. She gazed out at the buildings and streets of Terminus as they stretched for miles in front of her, but it was as if Daryl was suddenly all she was aware of.

 _Contain yourself, Beth, good Lord_ , she scolded, _the man laughed, it’s not like he started dancin’ around and singin’ love songs_. She felt herself flush, her own thoughts making her feel foolish; Daryl Dixon, singing love songs – the ridiculous things her brain came up with. She doubted he even knew any love songs and even if he did, there was not a single reason _she_ should or would be thinking about that.

She was obviously more exhausted than she’d thought.

“I had a brother,” Daryl’s voice was low, barely above a mumble, but Beth caught every word as if he’d shouted. Her blue eyes large, watching him again, waiting; surprise fading as she held her breath for more.

“He died when I was twelve – here,” he added.

Beth had never heard about Daryl’s brother before, never even knew he’d had one.

“He was an asshole –,” but there was fondness there, “but toughest sumabitch I ever knew. I figured, if anyone was gonna survive this shithole, it’d be Merle. Dumbass even cut off his own hand t’ get ‘way from ‘nother tribute.” He wiggled his fingers at her, smirking.

“Didn’t matter none though, got killed jus’ like ev’rybody else,” he chewed on his lip, ducking his head and scratching at the concrete railing.

“’Cept you,” Beth said, reminding him, “You survived.”

His voice was humorless, “Yeah, and it’s a charmed life I got now.”

She wondered where his other family was – his mother, father, did he have other siblings? Was he really as alone as he seemed? She’d always felt like she’d only had a few people in life, especially after Shawn and Annette had died, but she’d never been so alone as to have no one – not a single soul to call her kin.

“You miss ‘im?” she asked, before she could stop herself, before she could think how personal her question was.

He half shrugged, one shoulder pulling up and dropping. He was still scratching at the railing.

“I miss Shawn,” Beth mumbled, biting on the corner of her lip. Daryl’s head snapped up, eyes staring fixedly at her; she dropped her gaze, picking at a fingernail. “I miss the way he used to boss me around, like I was jus’ some little kid and he knew so much better – Lord, he used t’ make me so mad,” she laughed a little, breathlessly, eyes darting up to the sky, trying to keep the tears at bay.

“And I miss my sister, Maggie, and my dad,” she looked at Daryl then. “Before Shawn came here, I used t’ think that we’d always be lucky, y’ know? Like none ‘a our names would ever be called, ‘cause it happens where people get lucky like that – and we’d all grow up and Shawn would find some nice girl t’ marry and he’d have a whole lot ‘a kids and they’d probably all be girls ‘cause Shawn didn’ know one single thing ‘bout little girls – and we’d all be happy and _safe_.”

It all sounded so stupid now. Shawn hadn’t survived and here she was, about to be the next Greene to die in the arena, a fate she had _chosen_ , despite fearing this exact course of events her entire life. She angrily wiped at a tear streaking down her cheek. Daryl was watching her – probably thought she was a fool, just a stupid little girl with stupid fantasies.

She wanted him to think she was strong, capable, but here she was crying because her dumb little girl dreams hadn’t worked out.

“It was stupid,” she said, fingers running through her messy hair, pulled back into its usual ponytail.

She figured Daryl would agree, would tell her to suck it up, to _grow up_ ; but he didn’t.

“That’s how it’s s’posed t’ be,” he replied, still watching her carefully.

“Yeah,” she turned away from him, still sniffling, “well, that ain’t how it is.”

They stood in silence for a moment, Beth watching the lights of the city play against the skyline. She imagined Shawn standing in this same spot, and Daryl’s long-dead brother, and a hundred other tributes from District Eleven.

“I’m gonna die tomorrow,” Beth whispered, eyes finding Daryl’s in the darkness. He didn’t say anything – didn’t agree or disagree – just stood, still as a statute.

“You’re the last man standin’, Daryl Dixon, District Eleven’s only victor,” she added.

The look on his face about broke her heart.

She’d known him to be a dozen different things since she’d met him – cold, calculating, broken, wild – but he wasn’t any of that, not really; that was all just a mask he wore, maybe for the Terminites, maybe for himself too. Underneath it all, she realized, he was still that twelve-year-old boy who desperately hoped that his brother would be strong enough to come home a victor.

But no one had come home – not a single tribute had ever come back with him – and it weighed on him. He didn’t really hope she would die; he wanted her to survive, same as he’d wanted all the others to, same as he’d wanted Merle to.

But they didn’t, they just haunted him.

She didn’t want to be another of his ghosts.

“You gotta promise me somethin’.” She turned to face him and he mirrored her, as if some string pulled him along with her, “When I die, you won’ hold onto it – no matter what, y’ hear? You can’t hold on t’ all of us, Daryl, you gotta start lettin’ it all go or it’s gonna kill you.”

He looked concerned, eyes dropping to the ground, “And if it ain’t that easy?”

Beth’s voice turned sharp, perhaps sharper than she’d intended, “Don’ matter. You jus’ gotta, ‘cause I’m not gonna be another dead girl on your conscience – I won’t be, you understand?”

He nodded; eyes boring into hers in a way that made her wonder exactly how much of her he could see. She swallowed, nervous all of the sudden.

But he was listening to her, at least; promising her.

Then something of a smirk was creeping onto his mouth and he was eying her in a way that she’d never expected from him, like he was teasing, “Thought you said you weren’t gonna die? Matter ‘a fact, ‘m pretty sure y’ shouted it at me couple ‘a times.”

Beth grinned, embarrassed, but she straightened in mock-haughtiness, “Well of course I am. Who else is gonna keep you from bein’ such a jackass all the time?”

She laughed and he chuckled again, soft but no less real. It was as mind-blowing as the first time.

It was so strange: this easy camaraderie she suddenly felt with him, as if all they’d needed was to shout and shatter bottles and then they might be friends. She wished it had happened earlier – maybe even have happened when they were still home, in District Eleven. She would have liked to have been his friend there; she should have spoken to him that morning in the meadow.

But then, wouldn’t this be sadder, standing here together, the last night before her execution?

Not that it mattered, she thought, it was sad enough now.

She needed to get to bed, she realized with a sigh, even though she felt more awake now than she had before she’d come out here.

She was about to say goodnight when Daryl’s low voice broke the silence, “Don’ be stupid, Greene.”

Beth frowned, looking at him. She had no idea what he meant.

“Tomorrow,” he clarified, although it clarified nothing. “Tomorrow, you can survive, jus’ don’ be stupid.”

He turned to her fully now, one hand resting on the railing, the other hanging by his side, “When that cannon goes off you run like hell in the other direction, y’ hear? Y’ don’ stop for nothin’ – grab whatcha can but don’ go outta the way t’ get it.”

He took a half a step toward her, “Keep runnin’ ‘til y’ can’t – find water and a weapon – ain’t gotta be a knife or nothin’, a branch or rock’ll do y’ jus’ fine. And y’ stay away from other people – that’s how you survive, got it?”

She breathed, strangely shaky, that nervousness coming back to her; he was waiting for an answer, some confirmation that she’d heard him, that she would listen. She managed a jerky nod and he seemed satisfied, stepping back from her.

She bit down hard on a gasp of surprise when his fingertips brushed against the bones of her wrist as he pulled away.

It could have been an accident, of course – he’d been standing close, they were bound to touch – but she remembered the train, where in the smallest of spaces he’d managed to avoid touching her completely.

Her whole brain felt like it was fluttering around inside her head, as if she’d been struck dumb. And that jolt – that _something –_ that had rushed through her skin where he’d grazed her – she promptly stamped down whatever that was.

“Y’ should get t’ bed; wanna be sharp for tomorrow,” Daryl said, matter-of-factly. He didn’t seem fazed by her skin at all.

Beth felt foolish again – and _stupid_ – she was about to walk into the lion’s den, quite literally to her death, and something as simple as the _accidental_ touch of her mentor’s hand was making her – well, she didn’t know what it was making her but she certainly wasn’t focused on staying alive.

She needed to keep her mind on the important things and he was right, she needed to get some sleep.

Brushing her hair from her face, she shook her head – as if to dislodge any wayward thoughts from her brain – and turned to him, smiling, “Goodnight, Daryl.”

He nodded once in return, still watching her as always.

As she slipped back inside she might have heard him say _g’night, Beth_ , but it was probably the just the wind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully all the Bethyl makes up for this being such a late update! It was so nice to actually get to write these two being companionable as opposed to fighting, especially with Beth's inopportunely timed butterflies. I hope y'all enjoyed this one. 
> 
> As always, thank you so much to everyone who had reviewed, favorite, kudos'd, followed, etc. this story. It just makes me so happy!


	8. Sixty Seconds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let the Games begin.

* * *

**EIGHT.**  

“Don’t worry, Beth,” the man in the white lab coat smiled down at her, holding her forearm in a gloved hand, angling a syringe to bite into her skin, “This is just your tracker; from here on out, we’ll always know where you are.”

He said it in a way that was meant to convey reassurance – as if the tributes might be concerned that they could get lost in the arena – but Beth felt the weight of his words like a chain around her neck.

He let go of her arm, dropping it back into her lap, and disappeared through the doorway. The heavy metal closed with a hollow, ominous clang behind him.

She really was trapped; a prisoner.

She’d never been uncomfortable with small spaces before; never felt that panic rise in her chest, her breathing grow short, skin go clammy, heart beat mercilessly against her rib change, fit to burst from her chest. Now though, the room seemed too close. In her mind, the walls were inching toward her, darkness settling in, the shadows stretching out to suffocate her.

Gabriel took her hand, effectively cutting off her rapid train of thought. She gazed over at him and he smiled down to her, soft and sad. She was going to miss him, she thought, which was surreal in itself: that she would have ever missed a Terminite as much as her own family.

He felt like family though.

She tried to smile back at him, to show him she wasn’t as frightened as she felt. It was like Reaping Day all over again, her trying to be strong for Maggie and her father.

Gabriel seemed to sense her struggle. He pulled at the fabric of her shirts. The tributes would all be wearing similar outfits, and they usually reflected the climate of the arena. This year, Beth was dressed in simple, fitted olive green pants and high boots. The socks she had been given were long enough that she was able to pull them almost three-quarters of the way up her calves. She wore two shirts, both sleeveless; one fitted, colored tan, and the outer a dark gray and much looser.

“There may be some cold nights,” Gabriel ventured, eying her socks, “but otherwise you’ll probably be quite warm most of the time.”

 _A bit like District Eleven then_ , she thought.

“Oh,” he said suddenly, pulling his hand from hers and turning away. She couldn’t see but he seemed to be searching through his pockets. After a moment, he shifted back to her, something dangling from his clutched fingers, “I almost forgot about this.”

It was Sophia’s necklace, the one she’d given Beth to wear in the arena. Beth had completely forgotten about it, her mind so consumed with everything else. Now, though, she reached out delicate fingertips to run along the flattened metal of the twin hearts.

“I had it restrung,” Gabriel said, showing her the new black leather cord where the thin, silver chain had been. “I thought it would be stronger like this.”

“Thank you,” she breathed, taking the necklace from him and pulling it over her head. The hearts jangled against her collarbone.

“ _Tributes, please prepare for launch_ ,” a tinny, electronic voice announced.

Gabriel pulled Beth to her feet, holding her hand tightly as he walked her over to the clear tube that would take her into the arena above them. Beth swallowed hard, nerves running rampant once more.

“Beth,” Gabriel began, his voice as soothing and calm as ever; she looked at him, “I want you to remember something: I want you to remember that you have as much a chance as anyone to come home from this.”

Her eyebrows jumped in surprise, “I _can’t_ win, Gabriel.”

Gabriel smiled his favorite secret smile, “You say that, but you’ve already done so much more than you thought you could. You _are_ strong, Beth Greene – stronger and braver than anyone else here; you are here by choice and that is strength in itself, don’t ever forget that.”

“ _Two minutes to launch_ ,” the voice warned from the speakers again.

“Don’t worry, I’ll see you again soon,” Gabriel added.

She couldn’t speak, her voice too choked with the weight of his words, so she merely tossed her arms around his neck and pressed her face into his chest: one last moment of comfort; a final instant in which she could breathe before her world revolved around _hunt or be hunted._

She hated goodbyes.

“ _One minute to launch_ ,” the voice seemed to echo though the room.

Beth pulled away from Gabriel and stepped into the tube. She turned back to him as the door slid shut, locking her inside. Fear erupted in her chest again: her only thought, the same phrase over and over again – _you are going to die_. But then Gabriel was saying something, something she couldn’t hear through the thick plastic, something that looked like _be strong_.

 And she heard Daryl’s voice in her head: _don’ be stupid_ , _you can survive_.

She bit down hard, clenching her jaw together, her face becoming determined. She would not be afraid anymore, she would not be upset. She saw Gabriel smile for a moment before she was moving, jolting upwards on the platform beneath her feet.

All at once, the shadows above her head became bright blue sky. The arena stretched before her, revealing itself an inch at a time until she was standing in a wide field with the other twenty-three tributes.

At the center of the field was a great metal container, open at one end, which seemed to be spilling out an assortment of items. Beth could see weapons, food, clothing – everything a tribute might need to comfortably survive in the arena was there, spreading further from the container until it nearly reached the ring of tributes. The closest item, a black leather backpack, was only about twenty-five yards from where Beth stood.

She might be able to grab it before she took off, away from the others.

She glanced at the tributes around her; each of them waiting, ready, on their platforms. She breathed slowly, careful not to move too much. She didn’t want to set off the explosives.

Sixty seconds; that’s how long they had to wait, an instant earlier and you’d be blown to kingdom come.

It had happened once, to a tribute who’d simply lost her balance on the platform; the others had started the Games already covered in her blood.

_Fifty-five seconds…_

The clock, projected into the sky over their heads, counted down the seconds.

_Fifty-four…_

_Fifty-three…_

Beth could feel the others getting restless around her. The first fights for the weapons and food around the container were usually the most violent and typically cleared out a fair number of tributes. One year almost two-thirds of group had been cut-down by the end of the first day.

But Beth wasn’t planning on sticking around to see any of that; she’d already spotted a break in the trees that ringed the field. It would be a difficult sprint, especially since she’d have to cross the paths of at least three other tributes, but she was fast enough; she could make it.

_Thirty-nine…_

She looked down the line of tributes on her other side. Patrick was eleven tributes away from her, nearly at the other end of the group. He didn’t look queasy anymore, or nervous or even scared. He just seemed focused. She couldn’t tell what he was staring so intently at among the items littering the ground but whatever it was he was clearly determined to get it before anyone else.

_Twenty-five…_

She thought back to what Daryl had said: to stay away from the other tributes. At the time she hadn’t questioned it, now she wondered if he’d meant Patrick too. She knew, of course, that she and Patrick were no longer friends – they were both trying to get home and to do so meant that only one of them could live – but she had hoped that perhaps they might be allies in the arena.

Something about knowing that connection to home was gone hurt a bit more than she’d expected.

She looked back up at the clock, sucking in a sharp breath.

_Ten…_

_Nine…_

_Eight…_

She could get that backpack, she decided. It would only take her slightly off-course and whatever was in it could be useful.

_Seven…_

_Six…_

_Five…_

She readied herself, leaning forward onto the balls of her feet.

_Four…_

_Three…_

_Two…_

_One._

The cannon seemed to explode through the air. Instantly, the field burst into chaos. For a moment, Beth was shocked – stuck on the platform – then she was moving, rushing forward, toward the backpack.

The other tributes were moving too. Some of the fastest were already approaching the weapons, scattered closest to the container. Others were grabbing whatever they could nearby, some taking off for the woods, some staying in hopes of getting more.

Fights erupted as more and more tributes reached the weaponry. One boy took hold of a mace and felled the girl running next to him, her neck snapping at a horrifying angle before she dropped to a heap on the ground. Two more kids went down after the District Four girl, whose name Beth couldn’t remember, reached a set of hunting knives began to throw them with frightening accuracy.

Beth was nearly out of breath already when her fingertips finally grazed the leather backpack. She pulled it from the ground, using the momentum to swing it over her shoulders. It wasn’t heavy but there certainly was something inside – hopefully it was worth the extra run.

She didn’t even pause, adjusting her direction to make for the break in the woods as she avoided colliding into one tribute on his knees with an axe blade buried in his skull. She was halfway to the trees when she was jolted backwards, off the ground.

She fell, landing painfully on her back, another tribute already bearing down on her. He didn’t have a weapon but his hands were easily the size of her head and they were wrapping themselves around her throat, choking her.

She clawed at him, nails scratching at his face, his hands. She was strong, certainly, but compared to this she was nothing more than a rag doll. Pricks of black were edging into her vision – she was going to pass out any moment now.

She tried throwing her knees into his chest, his groin, _anything_ , but the sheer weight of him made it hard to move and she was rapidly losing strength as the oxygen was cut off from her brain.

He froze.

His grip slackened and his eyes rolled back. He lurched forward, dropping entirely on top of her. Beth gasped, trying to brace herself against his crushing weight. One of the heavy hunting knives was sticking out of the side of his throat and blood was running freely from the wound, dripping onto her face and hair.

She struggled beneath him, trying to lift him as her limbs slowly began to regain feeling. She glanced back at the container, hoping that no one had realized that her attacker hadn’t been successful in strangling her before he’d been killed.

For a moment it seemed as though she’d been lucky. The District Four girl who’d obviously thrown the knife was busy gutting a boy with curly blonde hair, blood spraying across her front in a horrifying pattern. Beth breathed and tried again to heft the weight of the dead tribute from her chest.

She thought of Shawn then, of the way he always used to tease her about being small and weak. He would be laughing now, she thought, to see her like this: so close to relative safety and yet stuck because she couldn’t manage to get herself free.

She glared at her brother’s laughing smirk in her mind’s eye, screwed her face in concentration and forced her arms upward. With a half roll, she heaved the body enough that she could shimmy out from beneath him. She’d only been trapped for a minute or two but it was long enough and she didn’t want to waste another moment.

She pushed herself to her feet, pausing only when she realized that the hunting knife was still lodged in the dead boy’s neck. Wrapping her fingers around the handle, slick with his blood, Beth wrenched the knife from his flesh.

Her stomach rolled but she bit back her nausea and turned from the body. She sprinted, didn’t stop until she reached the edge of the trees. For a moment, she turned back to look at the field. Bodies littered the ground; the grass was red with blood and gore. Children’s pale faces stared, lifelessly. Still others were fighting, clawing, tearing, ripping – Randall, Beth noted, was swinging a terrifying broad sword as if it were part of his arm, decapitating the girl in front of him.

Beth shivered in horror.

She searched the faces of the dead quickly, eyes jumping from one to the next – no Patrick, at least not that she could see. She turned away, breathing a faint sigh of relief, and started running again.

 _Keep runnin’ ‘til y’ can’t_.

The trees and low branches made it difficult to move swiftly or quietly through the woods but Beth wasn’t particularly worried about being stealthy. The tributes who were apt to be interested in tracking a person down were all still on the field, hacking each other to pieces. The only people in the woods now were likely to be the ones who planned on surviving, not hunting.

Which wasn’t to say that if she came upon someone else they would simply let her go; but she figured that anybody running through the woods now would be more worried about themselves than about her.

She ran faster, just in case.

It felt like hours.

Her lungs burned and her throat ached, bruised from nearly being crushed, but she didn’t stop running until her legs were fit to give out from beneath her. She glanced back the way she’d come and even though she’d long ago stopped hearing the sounds of the fighting on the field, she still felt too close to them.

 _Five minutes_ , she told herself. She’d take five minutes, catch her breath; then she’d keep moving.

There was a small clearing a few feet ahead surrounded by scrubby vines; she climbed over the brush and dropped to the ground, exhausted. She dug the point of her knife into the dirt by her side in case she needed to reach for it quickly. A skinny tree served as something for her to lean against as she pulled her backpack into her lap. The flap of it was sticky with drying blood and she had to breathe steadily through her nose to keep from vomiting.

After a moment, certain that she wasn’t about to evacuate the contents of her stomach, Beth lifted the flap and loosened the corded opening, dumping whatever was inside onto the forest floor in front of her.

It was a strange assortment of items, to say the least. There was a sweater, thick and knit that would likely keep her warm during the cold nights Gabriel warned her about; a canteen for water, empty of course; a box, made of thick, clear glass, full of iodine tablets for water sanitation; some leather cord, thin but strong; and finally, some manufactured processed meat sticks that smelled salty and vaguely spicy.

Strange, definitely, but she was sure that she would be able to find uses for all of it and she was especially glad to have some kind of food, even if the salt would make her thirsty.

And _Lord_ , was it getting hot. She ran a hand over her forehead, dragging her palm across her sweaty skin. Her fingers were streaked with the blood of the boy who’d attacked her; she could only imagine what her face must look like to the sponsors.

She glanced up into the branches of the trees. At first, she saw nothing but then she spotted it: the small, square box, nestled in the crook of two branches; the camera. They were all over the arena, always recording even if the audience wasn’t watching what was happening with that particular tribute. At this point in the Games, the cameras were still probably focused on the field by the container but sponsors would soon want to know what their other interests were doing too.

Beth waved at the camera, attempting to look as sheepish and embarrassed as she usually did; she wasn’t sure if she actually appeared either of those things or if she just looked like a terrifying mess. Not that it mattered; now that the Games were in-progress, sponsors would want her to prove herself worthwhile – to be more than just a pretty girl in a white dress.

Her five minutes were up. She piled her things back into her pack and slung it back over her shoulders. She pulled her knife from the dirt and stuck it in her belt, tucking her shirts behind it so she wouldn’t fumble if she had to grab for it in a rush.

Daryl had told her to find water so that was her priority now.

She took a steeling breath and stepped back over the scraggly vines, leaving her resting place behind.

* * *

_Left foot, right foot; left, right; left, right…_

She stumbled a little, her foot catching on root. Her legs ached, her arms felt like lead. Still she moved forward.

_Left, right; left, right…_

She repeated the mantra in her head, over and over, willing her body to mimic her thoughts. How long had it been since she’d rested and examined her backpack, an hour? Two hours? She wasn’t sure. She wasn’t even sure if she was going in the right direction – maybe there wasn’t any water this way. She had no idea; she’d never had to find water like this before. It had always just been in the well behind the house, a few steps away.

Her foot caught again but this time she couldn’t stop herself from stumbling forward into one of the thin trees. She pressed her cheek to the cool bark, her eyes dropping closed. Surely this heat couldn’t be natural – nothing could survive a constant climate like this one.

Something moved on the edge of her vision, a dark shape materializing out of the trees.

She should be alarmed, she realized, but the shadow came closer and she’d spent enough time watching him to know who he was.

“Daryl?” her voice was dry, cracking.

But that couldn’t be right; Daryl was a hundred miles away, not here, not with her.

“C’mon Greene,” he said. “Y’ told me y’ weren’t weak, now prove it.”

She was hallucinating.

 _Of course_ , she was; Daryl wasn’t actually in the arena, he was in Terminus right now, probably watching her on television and rolling his eyes at her pathetic state. She wondered why no one had sent her water yet – she must have sponsors – but the Daryl of her hallucination just huffed at her.

“Ain’t gonna learn how t’ survive if people send y’ stuff all the time,” he snapped. “C’mon girl, thought y’ were gonna come back an’ keep me in line from now on? How y’ gonna do that if y’ dry up here like a damn snake skin?”

She grit her teeth, she would _not_ die of dehydration in this godforsaken place; she was stronger than that.

She pushed herself away from the tree, took a few fumbling steps. She stopped, glanced back over her shoulder, but Daryl was gone, faded back into the haze of her mind.

With something heavy in her chest, she trudged onward, occasionally leaning heavily against the trees when it was difficult to keep upright.

Gradually, the trees seemed to grow thin around her and she stumbled to a halt just as the ground gave way to exposed flat rocks. Below her, stretching about forty feet wide was a shallow stream bed. It looked as if a large river had once run through here, but it had been drained – by nature or by man, she wasn’t sure – until only a lazy stream remained on one half of the shore and a few pools on the other.

Beth eyed the rocks beneath her feet. It wouldn’t be easy getting down there and she wasn’t exactly the most coordinated at the moment. She’d have to go slow, carefully. She went back into the woods a few feet, glanced around for some kind of pathway that would lead her down to the water.

On one side, there was nothing but a steep, rocky drop, almost straight down; but on the other side, the trees ran nearly all the way to the water and if she was careful she’d be able to use them to help guide her down.

Keeping her eyes on her feet, Beth held tightly to the trunk of one tree, angling herself to slide right into the next closest. She caught the branches in fumbling fingers, shimmying forward and letting herself fall toward the next tree.

Suddenly, the branch in her hands cracked, breaking from the tree, sending her tumbling.

Twigs and stones scratched at her as she slid downwards. Her elbow cracked against the rocks as she hit an outcropping, her arm going numb even as she tried to stop her descent. She dug her heels into the dirt, hoping to slow her movement, but she continued to slip through the loose ground cover.

At all once she was launched off the edge of a low cliff and landed with a painful splash in the middle of the stream. The force of the impact drove the breath from her lungs and the back of her head smacked against the pebbled bottom of the streambed.

But she was alive, which was a miracle if she’d ever seen one.

With a groan, Beth rolled herself onto her stomach and half crawled, half floated toward the dry shore of the creek.

Well, at least she’d found water, she thought bitterly, eying the bleeding mess that was her elbow. She splashed some of the stream water on it and bit her lip against the sting. It hurt like hell but she didn’t think she’d broken anything.

She pulled her backpack off her shoulders – a little worse for wear but still shut tightly – and reached inside for her canteen. Something sharp bit at her fingers and she yelped in surprise; turning the bag over and letting her things spill onto the stony shore, she realized that the glass box had broken during her fall. Most of the pieces were still large and the edges were sharp – _good,_ she thought, _another weapon._

She grabbed one of the loose iodine packets, filled her canteen with the cool water and dropped in the tablets. It was so difficult to wait – especially with the whole creek just begging her to drink and drink and not stop drinking until she couldn’t move – but she’d seen what could happen to a person who drank dirty water; she couldn’t afford to be sick in the arena.

She sat on the bank, sipping her purified water slowly. Her eyes scanned the ridge above her for any sign of other tributes, but she saw no one. She remembered Randall and his sword and felt fear blossom in her chest again.

The first death cannon went off a few minutes later. The fighting at the container must finally have been over. Another cannon, and another, and another…

Beth had nearly lost count when they’d finally ceased.

Nine cannons: nine dead tributes.

Fifteen remained.

And she was one of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dehydration is a pain, isn't it? But if you get to hallucinate a helpful Daryl Dixon then I suppose it can't be all bad. 
> 
> I'm sorry again for the late update, I'll try to be better about posting this in a timely manner. I suppose this is ended up being more of a transition chapter to get us from one leg of the story to the next. Oh, well. I hope you all enjoy it anyway.
> 
> As always, thank you so much for reading this, for liking it, favoriting it, leaving kudos, following it, reviewing it, etc. I can't even begin to express how wonderful it is knowing that people like this story.


	9. The Fallen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The illusion is shattered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, hey, how's everybody doing? It's been awhile, I know. There are not enough cookies in the world to apologize for how long it took me to write this chapter. One thing they never mention about writing is that even if you have a plan - even if you know exactly what is meant to happen in a chapter - actually writing that chapter can still feel impossible. So yeah, I got hit with writer's block and it didn't help that I've been incredibly busy as my job or that there is now a new puppy running around my house - hopefully the length of this chapter makes up for the lateness. I'm going to try to get on a schedule of posting on Sundays for the rest of this story which should hopefully give me enough time each week to write. Anyway, fingers crossed that you even enjoy this chapter.

* * *

 

**NINE.**

Night had fallen.

Beth huddled closer inside the small cave she’d found on the edge of the stream-bank. She’d spent the last few hours hiking upstream, keeping her eyes on the banks around her – watching for any signs of the others – until her feet were sore and her legs felt like they were jelly beneath her. Here, the pebbles of the shore had been replaced with boulders – rocks larger than her – that made the trek difficult but provided natural shelters like the one she’d ducked into as the sun had set overhead.

She hadn’t risked a fire, especially not in the darkness – too aware that the other tributes would already be drawn to water; a fire might as well have been an invitation for Randall to come kill her. Besides, it wasn’t as if she had anything she needed to cook; she nibbled on one of the meat sticks, appreciatively.

Still, though, Gabriel had been right: the night was getting cold, quickly. Already it felt like the temperature had dropped at least fifteen degrees since the sun had gone down – she could only imagine what it would feel like a few hours into the darkness.

She pressed her arms closer around her middle.

There had been some cold nights in District Eleven during the winter months – Beth had seen snow plenty of times in her life – but even though their house was small, and sometimes drafty, there had always been four walls between her and the frost.

The arena wouldn’t grant her that. She could feel the rustle of her hair against her neck, the whisper of the wind against her skin, slipping in between the cracks in her boulder-cave. She’d never been more grateful to have a warm sweater than when she pulled the heavy wool over her arms.

It was comfortable, the yarn smooth against her fingers, so unlike the rough spun sweaters that she’d grown up with at home. Annette had been a skilled seamstress – one of the best in the whole district – and she’d made Beth a sweater like this one once. It had been white and warm and Annette had given it to Beth for her ninth birthday. Beth had worn it every day that winter, and every winter after until it had literally fallen apart at the seams.

Annette had been in the middle of making a new one when the fever had taken her to bed and then to the grave.

Beth had tried to finish it – had picked up the needles and yarn so many times – but every time she’d just run her fingers across Annette’s sure stitches and disappear into a whirlwind of memories and tears.

So the sweater had always remained unfinished in Annette’s old sewing basket. It wouldn’t be finished now, either, she realized sadly. Maggie didn’t have the patience and while her father was excellent with wounds and stitching skin, he could never understand the patterns for making clothing.

One more thing she’d never get to do…

Beth ground her teeth, suddenly annoyed. She hated feeling sorry for herself. She’d done that once – after Annette had died – spent days in bed, angry at the world, miserable about her own existence. She hadn’t been able to find the strength to move, not until Maggie pushed her. Her father pushed her. She pushed herself – make it better, Beth, she’d told herself.

Life was hard, certainly, but she could either wallow or do something about it.

She’d chosen to do something.

It was the same choice she’d made at the Reaping: she’d known, deep in her bones, that sending Sophia into the Games was unfair; everyone else had thought so too. But while they’d remained silent, passive, she’d done the only she could to change it, to make it better.

Now here she was.

She could be sitting at home. It would be dinner time in District Eleven. She’d be sitting around the table with her sister and her father, maybe even Glenn, and they would be watching the Games on the spotty television on the hutch. She’d be watching Sophia shivering in the darkness (assuming she’d even made it this far), and Beth would be safe, sure, but that’s all she would be.

And a little girl would be dead.

She might not survive this, but at least she’d die knowing that she’d been able to do something.

Suddenly, the sky overhead seemed to glow, a faint blue color that washed out the stars, and the country’s anthem echoed through the arena.

Even the sky was fake it seemed, nothing more than a large screen with images of the moon and stars. Beth’s stomach dropped a little – she’d been using the sun to guide her direction for most of the day. She wasn’t an experienced tracker or hiker, but she knew enough about the movement of the sun to be able to use it to gauge whether she was at least going in a straight line.

Now, if the Game-makers could change the picture overheard at will she’d never be quite certain. They could easily manipulate that to bring her into the path of other tributes.

At least she’d realized and she didn’t think she’d been too obvious about it during the afternoon so perhaps the Game-makers hadn’t recognized the strategy. Still, now she’d have to find other ways of making sense of her direction in the arena…

As the anthem ended, a voice Beth had only ever heard coming from the television seemed to reverberate through the air around her – it was the falsely charming voice of the Games’ commentator, Gareth West.

“The fallen,” he announced in his most sincere tone – which was more dramatic than sincere, in Beth’s opinion.

Beth should have expected this as the first picture – the girl from District Three – appeared in the sky. Each night, the pictures of those who had died during the day were projected into the air for everyone to see. At home, Maggie and the others would be watching recaps of each death but that was thought to provide unfair advantages to the remaining tributes, so all they saw were the photos.

Since District Three was the first shown that meant that Randall and the others from the first two districts had survived the day – not that Beth had expected otherwise.

The boy from Five, both tributes from Six, the girl from Eight, the boy from Nine, both from Ten and the boy from Twelve all had photos flash across the screen.

Beth breathed a sigh – Patrick was still alive, it seemed.

And so, apparently, was Mika. Beth wasn’t sure why that made her happy to know.

So nine tributes had died that day and Beth wasn’t too surprised to note that all the deaths had occurred during or at the time of the initial fighting at the container – it was usually the bloodiest.

She tried not to be happy at how the competition had been cut down, repressed the thrill at having survived longer than some of the others. But she could feel it, bubbling right underneath her skin.

Daryl was right; she wouldn’t be the same if she survived this, she was already changing.

_Jus’ look at me_ , she thought. She’d been manipulating the Terminites since day one, been playing the weak, dumb blonde to confuse her opponents, shouted at her mentor and demanded that he give a damn – the old Beth Greene would have never done any of that.

The old Beth Greene was shy, quiet, pleasant…Beth didn’t want the Games to turn her into a monster but that didn’t mean she wanted to always be that meek little girl either.

Her mind wandered back to that morning, what felt like an eternity ago: standing on the roof of the tower, with Patrick, Rowan, Daryl and the stylists; waiting until the carriers arrived to bring them from Terminus to the arena. Rowan had been a mess, thanking them for being the best tributes anyone had ever had and declaring that one of them was bound to win – _it simply must be one of you_.

Beth had been uncomfortable – she had been so determined to dislike Rowan and yet she was sad to be saying goodbye and grateful for all the help Rowan had given them. Thankfully Patrick – always the more talkative – had stepped in, distracting the escort from crying herself into a puddle.

Daryl had been standing behind Beth and for the briefest of moments, she’d thought she’d felt his fingers brush her wrist again but when she turned to look at him, his hands were stuffed into the pockets of his pants.

She should have done something then – _anything_ – to show him she’d miss him. She should have hugged him, wrapped her arms around his chest and pressed her cheek to his heart, just to have done it once. Just to know that she’d thanked him: thanked him for worrying, thanked him for making her angry and stubborn and determined to prove him wrong about her; thanked him for helping Shawn…

But she hadn’t; she’d been that shy girl-child again and there had been strange flutters running through her, like her skin was electric, and she’d been rooted to the spot.

Now she’d probably never know what hugging Daryl Dixon was like.

She laughed quietly, the concept of hugging Daryl so preposterous even to her own brain. She wondered how many people had ever hugged him. He certainly didn’t seem like the type of man who enjoyed physical contact – although she secretly thought that might be exactly what he needed.

Had his mother hugged him? His father?

Once again her thoughts had circled back to unanswered questions about Daryl and his family. She sighed, not that any of it mattered – having these questions – it wasn’t very likely that she’d ever find out any more about him than she currently knew.

_Don’ be pitiful, Bethy_ , she reminded herself.

The sky had long since faded back to the moon and stars, the faces of the dead now only an imprint on the minds of the survivors: time to get some rest.

Beth tucked her backpack into the corner of the cave wall and floor, leaning back so it became a makeshift pillow in the dirt. Her cave was cramped but comfortable enough to get at least a little bit of sleep. She pulled the sleeves of her sweater down over her hands, curling her fingers into fists to hold the material in place, and crossed her arms over her chest for warmth.

She couldn’t completely keep out the chill but she was somewhat warmer.

She’d barely closed her eyes when something snapped in the woods.

Beth darted upright, only narrowly missing smacking her forehead against the roof of her cave.

She held her breath.

There was rustling in the woods above the stream bank, near enough that Beth could make out the sound of movement.

What was it: a person, an animal, something else entirely? The Game-makers often threw their mutations and experiments into the arena for the tributes to face – could this sound be a Walker?

She wanted to run, to flee, as fast as she possibly could, but she froze; not out of fear but because the voice in her head commanded her to: don’ move.

It was Daryl again.

_They might not ‘a spotted you yet; stay still_.

She counted seconds in her head, listened carefully to the movement, tried to imagine what Daryl might hear.

It sounded too heavy to be an animal (unless it was something big, like a dog or a wolf), so it was probably either a person or a Walker. She waited another beat, listening for the telltale grunts of one of the mutations.

Then she heard it: the same sounds she’d recognized during her private training session.

It _was_ a Walker.

Panic flooded her system. Another tribute was bad: they were smart, might notice the caves and look for tributes hiding out there; but the Walkers, they had a genetically enhanced sense of smell and Beth had about another two minutes before that thing would catch her scent and be upon her.

Options; she needed options.

She could fight it; she had beaten one before. But that had been on a leash, even though she hadn’t known that at the time, controlled by the Game-makers. This one was loose, free to rip her to pieces and gnaw on her flesh.

Besides, she was exhausted; she doubted she’d even be able to put up much of a fight against the monster.

Her only chance was to run.

_Distract it_.

Beth pulled her backpack into her lap, being as quiet as possible – Walkers had better hearing too, it made them more effective killing machines. She still had about a dozen meat sticks and even though she was loath to throw away food, she grabbed a few anyway.

_Be ready to run_ , he told her.

Beth slipped her backpack onto her shoulders, braced herself at the edge of the cave.

_Make for the water, should hide your scent_.

She peeled the wrapping of the sticks off quickly, rolled back her shoulder and hurled the meat snacks off into the night. Then, without pausing to look back, she raced toward the water.

It was deeper here and when she bent her knees the water reached up to the middle of her chest. She half swam, half walked as fast as possible upstream, taking care not to splash too much for fear of attracting any more unwanted attention.

_So much for sleep_ , she thought miserably.

The sky was shot with pink and orange when she finally dragged herself over to the shore again.

She collapsed, in the shadows of more large rocks, and drifted into a restless, fractured sleep.  
__

Beth moved slowly, cautiously.

She eyed the banks on either side of the stream. She needed to be more careful. The Games had begun, after all, and the first day reprieve, courtesy of the slaughter at the container, was over: now people would be hunting.

_Listen careful_.

The water here was shallower, lapping against her ankles as she waded as quietly as possible, her ears searching the woods for sounds of other tributes.

But the woods were silent for now.

Beth took a hesitant breath. She’d been on edge since her close encounter with the Walker. She’d been complacent, she thought angrily. Lured into a sense of peace after finding water and her cave – after avoiding other tributes for most of the day – she needed to be vigilant.

Still, she found herself wading lazily through the water even now. It was difficult not to with the way the woods felt so serene here along the banks of the stream. It was an illusion, she knew, like everything else since she’d stepped foot on the train to Terminus, but she was tempted to enjoy it, if only for a moment.

If she hadn’t known better, she might have guessed that she’d woken up back home in District Eleven: this place had the same smells, the same sounds; it could have been home. She wondered if this was intentional. Perhaps the other tributes looked at these woods and saw the same kind of similarities to their own districts – an odd sense of familiarity for each of them before they died.

Beth brushed the thought away. She would enjoy this moment of peace in these woods that felt like home.

A bug skittered past her face, fluttering to a stop on a large green leaf beside her; a ladybug.

Beth smiled, reaching out a fingertip to lift the bug from the plant. It sat for a moment before buzzing away from her.

It was strange, Beth realized, but there was beauty here – even here, where the smell of death hung heavily in the afternoon air.

She could almost imagine walking through this stream with Maggie, her father, Glenn; she could see them standing around her. Her father would be taking these great, gulping breaths of air, smiling, _isn’t a beautiful day, Bethy_. Maggie and Glenn, hand in hand, laughing, foolishly in love. And Beth, braiding flowers into crowns and smiling by her family’s side.

Except then she saw blood; saw the faces of her family, pale and speckled with red; their lives gone out of them in horrifying ways.

That’s what it would be like if they were here beside her; not the joy and happiness of exploring a new wood, but the frightening death of the arena and the Games.

Beth wiped the thoughts away. She wouldn’t think of her family like that; she couldn’t.

She had to think of them at home, safe, far from here and the violence of this place.

Her mind drifted to Patrick. There had already been one cannon today – one more death handed to the Terminites for their enjoyment – but she wouldn’t know if it was Patrick until night fell, when the anthem began again.

She hoped he was still alive.

Mika too, though she still wasn’t sure why it mattered. Perhaps it was just that the little girl reminded her of the children back in District Eleven, the ones who had followed her around and laughed as she sang them songs. Or perhaps it was simply because Mika was so young – like Sophia – and didn’t deserve to be here, in this place of death.

Not that any of them deserved this – not even Randall.

Beth waded further upstream, relaxing enough to take another meat stick from her pack and gnaw on it as she walked. They weren’t great but they were protein, at least, and she was grateful for the food. Still, the salt made her tongue burn for water as she ate them. It was fine now, with the stream at her feet, but she wouldn’t be able to stay here forever and then she would need to be more sparing with her canteen.

Who knew when she’d get a chance to fill it again?

She surveyed the stream banks in this part of the river. Here the ground had grown stony again, the water a lazy, winding flow. The boulders Beth had taken shelter in the night before were fewer here, only occasionally lining the streambed. Beth paused as she reached one, dropping a hand onto the warm brown stone.

The high flat rocks of the banks and sparse trees that edged the stream had always been a comfort to Beth as she wandered upstream; as she well-knew, they made it difficult to come and go from the streambed without a climb. But here the banks dipped lower, not quite the sheer drop from the ground to the water as they had been elsewhere along the stream.

This would probably be the best place to leave the streambed for good, she realized. For all she knew, the further she moved upstream the more impossible it would be to traverse the high cliffs surrounding her.

Beth debated her options. She hadn’t expected the time to leave to come so quickly. Did she stay in the stream, risk ending up further upstream, caught in a situation where she was stuck between the high banks and a vicious opponent? Or did she leave now, abandon a place of relative safety and try her luck on solid ground?

She shifted on her feet, her damp toes rubbing against the wetness of her socks. She glanced down at her boots; they were made for keeping her feet dry but walking through the water for two days was taking its toll on them. When the temperature dropped that night, Beth’s feet would be freezing and that would only lead to sickness.

She needed time to dry out in the warmth before the sun set for the day.

So leave it was.

Beth took a single step forward when a rush of movement made her freeze.

Something was crashing through the underbrush on the hills above her. Beth dove to ground, tucking herself behind the boulder, holding her breath.

Someone was running, she could hear them slipping and sliding down the flat rocks. There was a shout – female, Beth thought – and a splash as she hit the water. More crashing followed: the sounds of two more people. Whoever they were, they were chasing the girl.

Beth bit her lip; her curiosity was battling with her survival instinct. On the one hand, it would be helpful to know who was still alive and hunting but on the other hand if they spotted her, she would be dead. She was tough, but she didn’t think she’d be able to take on two tributes at once.

There was more splashing. The girl must have hurt herself when she slipped down the rocks because she sounded as if she was crawling through the water now. The other two moved swiftly, fluidly.

Beth grit her teeth. Should she try and help?

Everything told her that she needed to; every inch of her skin was screaming at her to step out from behind that rock. She would have the element of surprise, after all. She could take out one of them; distract the other while the girl took care of that one.

_Then what_?

Daryl’s voice made her hesitate. Well, then she’d have an ally, right? That’s how things worked in the arena: people made alliances, worked together for a while – then it always fell apart though. Alliances usually ended with one tribute killing another while they slept; the good ones had the tributes agreeing to go their separate ways. The best ones had one tribute dying before they ever had to make that decision.

_Don’ know this girl_ , Daryl reminded her. _What’d I say ‘bout other people_?

_Don’ trust ‘em_ , she responded.

But she couldn’t just sit there and listen to someone die; not when she could help.

“Please,” the girl was crying now, begging.

_I got ‘a do somethin’_ , Beth resolved.

_Got ‘a stay alive’s what you got ‘a do_ , Daryl’s voice replied, harshly.

_I can help her_ , Beth affirmed, shifting toward the edge of the rock.

_You go out there, you’ll be dead too_.

Suddenly, with a harsh bubbling scream, the crying stopped. Beth didn’t move, her fingertips gripping the rock so hard that they ached.

The sound of a cannon exploded overhead.

Beth’s eyes dropped closed. _Too late_. She pressed her forehead against the rock, took a strengthening breath.

When she opened her eyes, she could only stare as the water at her feet ran red with threads of blood.

The two tributes must have been searching the body of the girl for supplies but Beth paid them no mind. She couldn’t move, could barely breathe.

One thought echoed through her head, as if on a horrible loop: _you did nothing_.

She’d sat there, safely hidden behind her boulder, while someone had been killed not two dozen yards from her. She could have helped, done something, but she hadn’t. She’d hidden like a weak coward.

Like a scared little girl.

_You weren’t scared, you were smart_ , but she didn’t want to hear Daryl’s voice in her head; didn’t want him to assure her that she’d made the right decision, that it was her life or someone else’s and she was still alive.

“C’mon,” that was a boy’s voice now, “they’ll be here to take the body away soon.”

“Don’t know why we even bothered; hardly had anything good on her,” another girl’s voice, remarkably similar to the boy’s.

It was the twins from District Four.

Beth remembered their matching eyes, cold and lifeless. They’d looked dead already that night at the interviews, as if their souls had drained away years ago. She’d been wary of them then; concerned by them when she’d seen the damage they’d done at the container; now though, now they were terrifying.

She listened as they trudged up the opposite bank, waited until their footsteps had faded back into the silence of the woods.

When she stood up her legs felt cramped, tight.

The body lay in a heap, limbs tangled. Her face was turned, looking right at Beth, as if she’d known help had been close by. _Please_ – had she been begging the twins not to kill her, or praying that Beth would reveal herself?

Beth choked back a sob, her stomach rolling painfully.

But she couldn’t get sick. No sponsor wants a tribute who gets upset over the death of a girl who isn’t even an ally. She had to pretend like she didn’t care, like she was stronger than that.

She wouldn’t leave the streambed here; she couldn’t. This was a graveyard now. She turned away from the girl – _she was from District Twelve_ , Beth thought – took a painful breath and walked downstream.

She’d find another place, somewhere else that the banks dipped lower – she’d seen a couple places where the climb wouldn’t be terrible – then she’d leave this streambed for good.

The illusion had been shattered again.

There was no peace here; this was the arena.

* * *

His knuckles were white.

Gabriel’s hand hovered near his shoulder, as if tentative to touch him. Some part of Daryl was grateful; he didn’t like being touched. Touch meant vulnerability; touch meant someone was close enough to do damage.

He didn’t like that.

Still, Gabriel had this presence of calm – the damn man practically radiated it – and Daryl could feel his muscles easing, his fists opening ever so slightly.

It had been close, far too close. Those little bastards had been within reach, damn near on top of her; one wrong move and she’d have been dead.

“She’s fine,” Gabriel seemed to have read his thoughts.

“Still,” that was Rowan, her voice pitched higher than normal, nervous. “I think my heart is fit to burst from chest.”

They were talking around him, as usual. He was silent. But that’s how it worked: they discussed, conversed, planned. He watched, moved the pieces when he needed to, chewed on his lip and hoped his gambles paid off.

He’d nearly killed her though; had seen the twins moving closer to her – the benefit of being with the mentors and sponsors back in Terminus – had risked not sending her a message to warn her. Not that he could have sent her a note, of course, but some small package to draw her away from the stream before she had to meet the twins might have worked.

But he hadn’t; he’d chanced that she’d be able to avoid them herself.

He’d been right but only just.

He watched her face now taking up the screen in front of him. Grim and determined; already nothing like the girl he’d seen in District Eleven.

Nothing like the shy, quiet, slip of a tiny girl who always seemed to be out in the meadow when he trudged back to Victor’s Village after a night hunting; she’d been other places too, often on the edge of his awareness: singing happiness into the folks at the summer festival, leading a string of kids around like a momma duck with her ducklings, helping her daddy out with the sick and wounded.

She’d been there, around; had burst into his consciousness with two simple words, echoing into the silence of the square: _I volunteer_.

Now there she was, and something in his chest seemed to reach out toward her. Something wanted so desperately to bring her home. He could see her, so much more completely than he’d ever dared look before.

He thought that Games had changed her – but he’d been wrong: where once her skin had seemed like porcelain, he now saw ivory. She wasn’t breakable, she was strong. He’d been a fool before, just like the rest of them, thinking her weak, thinking she was another dead girl.

She was right: she _could_ survive.

And he could help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I really hope that made up for taking forever to post but probably not. 
> 
> As usual, and especially since I've been gone for so long, thank you to everyone who has left kudos, or commented, or reviewed, or favorited or whatever for this story. It really does help and make me happy.


	10. Crash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A faint memory of broken mirrors bringing bad luck wafted across her brain but the thought drifted away – she was already in hell.

**TEN.**  

It was like an echo in her brain: a hollow blast of cannon, the death of that girl from District Twelve. The screams and the begging – the never-ending sound of horror – a loop, running through her mind; she could see each second of it, though she’d never actually seen any of it: the twins, sadistic but cool – emotionless – it was about survival for them, after all; and the girl, dark hair, pretty face – Beth could see her dressed up from the interviews: she’d been wearing a red dress, looking like smoldering embers, faint red light kissing her face – now replaced with blood.

Everything was blood.

Shawn – Annette – those children at the container – it always ended in blood.

Even Terminus: _sanctuary for all_ , they’d said; _community for all_. They’d stood beneath blood-soaked banners and proclaimed a new world order – _sanctuary, community_ and _blood_.

Beth heaved, pressing her palm to a rock to keep standing as the contents of her roiling stomach were evacuated onto the pebbled, muddy ground. What she must look like, she thought; losing herself over a tribute from another district, a tribute who was neither friend nor ally.

Sponsors, if she even had any, were probably fleeing from her in droves.

_Screw them_ , she thought bitterly. _Screw all ‘a this_. She didn’t need them, didn’t need their false generosity. She’d lived her whole life in District Eleven, starving with her people; freezing with her people; living and breathing and dying with her people. She’d never asked the Terminites for anything, she wouldn’t start now.

Sponsors made it easier to survive, sure, but she didn’t need them. She could do it on her own.

She eased her aching body to ground, leaning her back against the smooth rock. She just needed a minute. Death cannons usually drew tributes hoping to catch the survivors weak and exhausted from a fight; Randall would probably be on his way at that very moment, searching out a victim to destroy.

She needed to keep moving, yet her stomach protested.

Beth dropped her head back, her eyes slipping up to the expansive sky above her. She’d expected the same false blue she’d grown accustomed to; the cloudless, endlessly beating sky, full of sun and heat and the air so thick and dry it was choking. But dark, swirling storm clouds had formed overhead, threatening.

_Too quick_ , Beth thought; they weren’t natural. Real storms didn’t form in moments and only seconds ago, the sun had been fitting to dry her out.

The Game-makers were giving them rain; perhaps the Terminites were growing bored watching tributes fade into dehydration. Not that the reason much mattered, Beth decided; a rainstorm might make her feel better, would certainly cool her overheated skin.

The first drop landed squarely on her nose and for a moment, she felt peacefully refreshed; then she heard the rushing.

It was distant, a low _whoosh_ from upstream. She turned, frowning, as the rain grew steadily heavier. There was something odd about the sound, strange but familiar, though she couldn’t place it.

The rumbling grew louder and Beth could begin to hear other noises: birds cawing, rocks scraping against rocks, and that same rushing sound. She glanced down; the pebbles on the bank were bouncing, like jumping beans, rocking back and forth in the puddles of the stream.

For one horrible moment, Beth wondered at what new terror was coming her way; then she knew.

She had heard that sound before: it was the same great push that the well behind the house made every morning at first use, as if the pressure had been released and the water was rushing forward in a single crushing wave.

She stared in awe as the water dashed against the bend in the stream, shifting against the contours of the banks, changing course rapidly and coming for her – running headlong at her, like a herd of great, wild horses.

Beth leapt to her feet, sprinting away from the angry wave.

She searched for an escape but the banks were too high here, sheer cliffs of flat rock. She’d never be able to climb them, not before the water crushed her against the stone.

She ran; her breathing hard and fast and breaking her chest. It was agony but the wave was gaining on her and the rain, still falling in relentless streams, was making the ground slippery and dangerous.

She nearly tripped, catching her already bruised hands on the edge of a boulder, but she stayed upright; a brief pause as she bolted.

The rush of water was closer, too close.

She wasn’t outrunning it. She was just delaying the inevitable.

There was water lapping at her ankles now.

There were trees on the banks here. She darted toward them. Her fingers gripped the smooth, peeling bark of a skinny white birch. She tried to pull herself up, her arms vibrating with the exertion.

It was too late.

Water hit her: a great swirling, heavy, pulling, rushing wave, tossing her about like she was nothing more than a rag doll. She clung to the tree but the force of the water was pulling her away, stretching her arms out, her fingers sliding away from the bark.

_Please, God_ , she begged, _not like this_.

She lost her grip on the tree.

The tide rushed her along, knocking her into the boulders of the streambed. With one sickening crunch, she felt her arm go frighteningly numb. The water swirled around her and still the rain fell until the whole world was drowned.

The wave spun her down, beneath the surface; tossing, rolling, turning her until she couldn’t find the light of the sky anymore.

She was going to die; disappear into the darkness of the water and never rise up again. They were preparing her cannon now, she knew. Their fingers were on the button – all she had to do was let go, fade away. It was getting hard to breathe. It wouldn’t be long now; besides, she’d always heard that drowning was a peaceful way to die – better than being gutted out there by the other tributes.

She could go on her own terms, wasn’t that what she wanted?

She could close her eyes; let the water in and it would all be over. This nightmare would end. Perhaps she’d even find absolution – for that girl from District Twelve – for being weak and afraid –.

_Would you jus’ shut the hell up_ ; she’d expected Daryl’s voice, not Shawn’s.

_Beth Greene, you get your skinny little ass out ‘a that water like I showed you. What the hell’s the good in teachin’ you how t’ swim if you ain’t gonna use when y’ need it! Good lord_.

The water stung her eyes as she opened them, the world around her a warbled mess of grey and blue, but the wave had righted her again and she could see the clouded, blackened sky above her head. Stretching her arms above her and kicking out her legs – the way Shawn had taught her – Beth pulled herself through the water to the surface.

She gasped in a great breath of air. The stream – now a river – was still pulling her along with its currents, but Beth could see that the banks here were much like the one that she’d first slipped down the day before. The trees were thin but there were plenty of them and the height of the water now brought her nearly halfway up the steep bank. 

With a bit of fancy maneuvering across the tide, Beth managed to swim close enough to the bank that she was within reach of the tree line. She reached out with her good arm, the other still floating weakly by her side, and her fingers found purchase around a stringy branch.

Beth pulled, tried to shift herself against the current, but the branch wasn’t strong enough and she heard the snap just as the twig gave way. Cursing, Beth reached out again; trying instead to wrap her hand around the trunk of another tree. Her fingers slipped, scrabbling but she couldn’t hold on.

_This isn’t workin’_ , she huffed. She couldn’t hold on tight enough against the flow of the river – not with only one good arm.

A crazy idea hit her then and she turned her body forward, let the current push her. She stretched out her legs, her eyes on a tree jutting awkwardly out of the water. She pressed closer to the side of the banks, branches and twigs scratching at her face, but still she kept her eyes on that tree.

_Three, two, one_ – she let the wave crash her into the tree. She slammed her feet into the base of the trunk, tucking herself between the tree and the muddy, rocky leaves, wrapping her arms around the tree as if she were hugging it.

_Now just get yourself out ‘a there, Greene_ , Daryl’s voice was back, urging her onward.

The water had stopped pulling her along now, though it still dashed into her back. She clung to the tree, pressed against the bark.

_Pull yourself up, Beth_ , she ordered, wrapping a hand around the base of a tree just a foot above her. She tucked one of her feet against another, lower, and levered her body upwards.

It was slow going; her limbs were exhausted and her clothes were soaked, heavy with water. Finally, with one last groan, Beth pulled herself all the way back onto the flat, solid ground of the shore above the river.

She wanted to lay there forever.

But the rain was still falling and Beth could already feel the air around her dipping colder and colder. It seemed that the fresh water would come with a price for the tributes: freezing temperatures.

Beth dragged herself back to her feet. She needed shelter; somewhere to get away from the rain, a place to huddle down in until morning when she might be able to dry out her clothes.

Arms pressed close to her chest, Beth trudged away from the riverside. The open spaces of the wood around her made her nervous – she’d grown a bit used to the protection that the banks had offered.

Out here, tributes could be lurking anywhere: around the next copse of brush, in the branches of any tree, from behind any nearby rocks. She was exposed, injured and too cold to put up much of a fight.

_Ping!_

Beth’s head whipped around.

_Ping!_

The sound seemed to bounce off every tree around her. Her gaze darted back and forth, desperately searching for the source of the ringing. Finally, her eyes lighted on the silvery material of the parachute as it drifted to the ground in front of a large, willow tree.

Beth practically collapsed on the ground in front of the mirror-plated box, her knees hitting the dirt painfully. Whatever was inside was large; the box was about a foot wide and at least that tall. Her purple fingers ached as she rushed to open the lid.

The lock clicked and she paused. This was a gift from her sponsors, the very people she’d sworn off not two hours before; the same Terminites who had caused her to be here, suffering, freezing, while they sat back and enjoyed the show.

She didn’t want anything from them.

She gripped the box in her hands, biting her lip. She could throw it away – chuck it into the river and show the Terminites exactly what she thought of their _generosity_ ; but no, she didn’t want anything from them but if she alienated them, turned her back on them, well – the Game-makers were always happy to off the viewers’ least favorite tributes.

She didn’t want their help, but that didn’t mean she wanted their hatred either.

She sighed, _what would Daryl say?_

She mulled the question over in her mind for a moment; of course, she realized suddenly, he would tell her to take it – he was the one who’d sent it, after all. He didn’t have the authority to purchase any gifts for her – he needed to convince the sponsors to do that – but he controlled when and where she received them.

She bit her lip against her frustration; but there was no use fighting the system, not when she was already in it.

The lid lifted easily, flipping back on a hinge. The inside of the box was the same mirrored glass as the outside, but Beth avoided peering at it too closely – she didn’t need to see the reflection staring back at her. Nestled in the middle of the box was something Beth hadn’t expected: a blanket made of charcoal-colored wool.

She touched the material with a gentle fingertip, it was rough-spun not the fabricated smoothness of the Terminite blankets. This was from home.

Beth was suddenly absurdly happy that she hadn’t just dumped the box in the river.

This wasn’t a Terminite gift after all. This was from her family, the people of her District. Beth chewed on her lip, struggled to keep tears at bay but there was still rainwater running down her cheeks so she didn’t try too hard to stifle her crying.

She smiled, dropping her head back and hoping that a nearby camera could catch her grateful expression; hoped her family knew how much this meant to her – that _Daryl_ knew how much she’d needed this.

Then, as she bent her head back to the blanket, she realized that Daryl had given her something else as well: the trunk of the willow tree, hidden mostly by the wispy strands of leaves that touched the ground around her, was partially hollow; the space large enough that she could fit comfortably inside, at least for the night.

“Thank you,” she whispered into the growing darkness, gathering up the parachute box and her backpack and crawling into the dryness of the hollow tree.

She was so tired that she’d barely wrapped the blanket around her shoulders before her eyes dropped shut and she slipped into sleep.

* * *

 

She must have heard the anthem that night, must have woken to the sounds of tributes’ names being announced into the darkness, but she couldn’t remember any of it. When she opened her eyes, the sun was out once more and the world looked as new and bright as ever.

_Breakfast_ , her stomach demanded, groaning.

Beth grabbed her knife – more grateful than ever that it hadn’t been washed away during her swim – and trudged out into the morning sunlight.

She kicked at the dirt, her feet rustling up puffs of dry dust, the ground already hard from the rising heat. The rain, it seemed, was long past them and Beth wondered when or if they would ever see more. The weather wasn’t natural, after all; it was another prop used by the Game-makers to force tributes together or make them prove their resilience.

Beth was curious which reason they’d had for yesterday’s rain.

She didn’t want to wander far from her tree. The knowledge that Daryl had ultimately picked her shelter might have made her a bit more comfortable but it certainly didn’t alleviate all of the wariness that weighed on her.

She found a patch of ripe berries that looked decent enough, red and dotted with water droplets from the rain. She pulled one from the brambles, rolled it between her fingers, hesitating – it looked safe – but she’d never seen this kind before, didn’t recognize it from home, and she knew that poisonous berries would be something the Game-makers would find terribly amusing.

Take the risk, or not? One berry could kill her, but not eating anything would leave her weak and vulnerable and she’d probably end up dead anyway. Her stomach rumbled again, as if to remind her that it had been a while since she’d eaten. She still had the meat sticks, she reasoned, but the salt was bound to make her thirsty again and now that she was no longer in the streambed conserving water would be important.

She was halfway determined to drop the berry and leave when something rustled in the tree above her. She whipped her knife from her belt, her head tipping back to see her assailant, stance low and as ready as she could be – she needn’t have worried, however. In fact, she nearly starting laughing at herself, at her paranoia, and she might have, if she hadn’t been aware that real threats actually might be nearby.

The squirrel scurrying down the bark of the tree, however, was probably not going to attack her.

Beth slipped her knife back into the waistband of her pants and watched as the small creature clung to the tree with his feet and reached out both hands to pluck a berry from the bush before he disappeared back into the canopy above.

_Well,_ Beth thought, _if the squirrels ain’t afraid of ‘em_ …

She popped the red berry into her mouth; let it roll against her tongue for a moment before delicately crushing it between her teeth. With a nervous breath, she swallowed the mash and paused, waiting – but when she didn’t feel her stomach clench in horrifying pain, or her throat close against the air around her, she figured that the berries were probably safe after all.

Beth pulled the bottom of her shirts into a makeshift sack and plucked as many berries from the brambles as she could carry. She would stick the extras into her backpack for later.

She ate her breakfast under the hot sun, only partially shaded by the weeping branches of her willow tree, letting her clothing dry out in the warmth of the day. She desperately wanted to stay here, in this little nook of the woods where Daryl had found her shelter, but she knew she had to keep moving. The only real way to survive out here was to keep on or else, sooner or later she’d get too comfortable, drop her guard and end up with an axe in the back.

So she rolled up her new blanket and stowed it safely into her black backpack, used the parachute to wrap up her berries, tucking the little bundle near the top; she wanted to keep the mirrored box that the blanket had come in too, but it was too large to fit in her bag and she wasn’t going to carry it around.

She nearly left it in the tree before an idea struck her. She pulled her blanket from the bag again and draped the thick material over the box – it would help muffle the sound, and hopefully keep her from hurting herself – then, with as much force as she could muster, Beth drove the heel of her boot onto the top of the box.

As she hoped, she heard the resounding crunch of the mirror box breaking apart. A faint memory of broken mirrors bringing bad luck wafted across her brain as she pulled some of the shards out from under the blanket, shaking the smallest pieces from the wool, but the thought drifted away – she was already in hell, how much worse could it get?

She hefted her backpack onto her shoulders, threw the tree one last longing, grateful look, and marched away into the woods.

A couple hours later and Beth’s stomach as growling again; she was used to being hungry certainly – people in District Eleven didn’t have much in the way of food, not like those in some of the other districts – but her days in Terminus, eating richly and well, had tricked her stomach, leaving her hungry more often than not.

Annoyed despite herself, Beth dropped down beside a rocky hill, where more of the heavy boulders seemed to be piled, precariously half-balanced against one another. She pulled the parachute of berries from her pack and a meat stick too, to give her some protein. It was a meagre lunch but at least she’d be able to walk five steps without her stomach rumbling demandingly and loud enough for enemies to hear from a mile away.

The berry juice soothed the salty dryness from her tongue and once again Beth almost allowed herself to relax for a moment.

Then she heard it: the tell-tale sounds of voices, low and whispered but bouncing off the trees anyway. She gripped the hilt of her knife, pulling it from her belt with shaking fingers.

There were people coming around the hill of rocks – definitely more than one – and by their voices, she knew that it was at least one boy and one girl. Her stomach dropped as she imagined the Twins, recalling in horrific detail the sound of the District Twelve girl being gutted.

She would _not_ die begging.

She hesitated for a moment: should she try and slip away in the other direction or stand her ground, use the element of surprise to her advantage and attempt to take them out?

It wouldn’t work, she realized pitifully. There was only one of her and two of them – she wasn’t fast enough to get them both without one of them killing her. Running was her only real choice.

She listened hard, tried to match her steps to the sounds of their feet crunching against the forest floor. They were coming around the right side of the hill so she edged away around the left, backing up slowly, carefully – all too wary of the voices rounding in front of her.

Suddenly, her back collided with something frighteningly solid.

Beth spun around sharply, her breath catching painfully in her chest.

It wasn’t the Twins who’d been coming around the corner: it was the boy and girl from District Two – Ben and Hayley – but they weren’t alone. They’d set a trap, split up, and she’d fallen for it.

“Well, well, well,” he said, leering at her through watery eyes, “looks like it’s my lucky day.”

Beth choked down the bile that rushed to her throat. This was her nightmare come to life.

This was Randall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun, dun, duhhhhh! Cliffhanger! I know, it's cruel but this is exactly where I have been wanting to get since we got into the arena - this moment. Hopefully, it was as dramatic as I want it to be!
> 
> As always, thank you to everyone who has been reading this, leaving kudos and favoriting it and commenting/reviewing, whatever. It means a whole lot and definitely helps when writer's block strikes!


	11. Caught

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm dying...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: There is a scene in this chapter that deals with attempted rape and sexual assault. If this is a problem, please scroll to the end of the chapter instead. 
> 
> So this chapter is going to be a little odd, which you'll note right off the bat, but I kind of wanted to try something a little bit different. I sincerely hope it works.

**ELEVEN.**

_He’ll be alright; he’ll be alright; he’ll be alright._

She whispered it furiously to herself, over and over again, her nails digging into the scrubbed top of the old wooden table, eyes stuck on the grainy picture of the television. Some days she wished that their screen was bigger, better – wanted to be able to see everything happening within the arena – but then there were the guttings and the severed heads and the bursts of blood on the camera lenses and she desperately hoped that the electricity would give out.

It never did during the Games though; in fact, that was the only time they were guaranteed of absolutely no blackouts.

Even so, it was nice to be able to see him – to watch him surviving, all those miles away. And he _was_ surviving. He was one of the last few – only five left now – he actually had a _chance_. Who would have thought it: a District Eleven tribute making it this far? The only one who’d ever done it before was Daryl Dixon, but he’d practically been made for the world of the arena – Shawn was nothing like him.

And yet Shawn was still alive.

She watched him slinking through the bushes, over-dry dust clinging to the sweat on his skin. This climate was far from what they were used to in District Eleven, where rain was frequent and the dust only kicked up in the highest of summer months. He’d struggled a bit, at first, to adapt, but his sponsors had been helpful – won over by his natural charm and humility – and now he was nearly flourishing.

He certainly didn’t look like the skinny sixteen-year-old who’d walked onto that stage in the center of the square.

It was more than the lean strength in his muscles, or the way he carried his head now – all man and no boy – there was something else; she could see it, just below the surface of his gaze. The Terminites probably thought it was hunger – for the kill, for the victory – but Beth knew what it was: there was death in her brother’s eyes now.

Her daddy always said that death was a part of life and that everyone carried a little bit of that death with them; but the Games, they made the death bigger – made it overwhelm the life until death was all anybody knew anymore, all anybody felt.

She saw the death in Shawn and wondered what he’d be like when he got back – because he _was_ coming back, she was sure of it.

Momma and Daddy were holding hands, like they always did when Shawn was on the television. Daddy’s face was determined, stone-like but Momma was worrying her lip in her teeth, nervous. Maggie was sitting on the kitchen floor, knees pulled up to her chest. She looked calm, as certain as Beth felt, save for the twitch in her jaw; just a little thing, barely noticeable, but still like a beacon, belying her fear. They all had doubts – even though Shawn had done better than anyone expected.

Beth had no doubts; Beth had faith.

She had faith in Shawn, faith in God; faith in Daryl Dixon.

 _He’s got a chance_ , her daddy had said when the door had closed behind them the last time they’d seen him. _Daryl Dixon tries, always does – works his damn tail off tryin’ t’ bring those children home. Shawn’ll be alright with him_.

And he’d been right, ‘cause there Shawn was, still on their screens; still making it.

He’d be coming home.

The brush just ahead of Shawn rustled and Beth watched her brother stop short, tense. There was someone moving toward him; another boy – from District Three – with a heavy, spiked club in one hand. There was already blood splattered down his front, drying across his cheeks.

There was more than death in this boy’s eyes, Beth realized; this was the hunger for it, the clawing, aching, wanting for destruction.

The fights were always the worst to watch. Her brother swung his spear – a long, thin thing with a sharp blade on the end – to match the other boy’s crushing sweep. They spun away from one another, teeth bared, menacing.

Again, together; apart, together; spin, side-step, sweep. It was some horrible dance.

They watched, breath held.

The boy kicked Shawn in the chest, dropped him back to the ground. He reached for Shawn’s throat, scrabbled against flailing arms; then Shawn threw a punch, his aim was true – the boy rolled away, blood dripping from his nose.

They danced again.

With a wet, metallic shout, the boy reared back, Shawn’s spear point dug into the flesh above his hip.

Beth knew enough: it was a killing blow.

The boy dropped to his knees, his back; red stains were already spreading over the grey cotton of his shirt. It would be a few minutes yet, until the cannon rang throughout the forest; this boy was doomed to a slow death.

Shawn was breathing hard, purple blooming across one eye. He raised his spear again, pressed the very tip to the boy’s throat – it would be a mercy killing now.

He paused, a moment’s hesitation, an apology on his lips.

 _I don’ want them t’ change me_ , he’d whispered to her as he’d hugged her goodbye.

They hadn’t, she knew watching him consider this boy, weigh the guilt of this kill.

Then it happened; her world stopped turning.

The boy slid sideways, away from the spear point, pulled a knife from his boot and lashed out.

Beth watched her brother shout in agony; watched blood spurt from his Achilles tendon, severed under the blade edge. He collapsed to a knee and the boy struck again, burying the knife into the dip of Shawn’s shoulder.

The sound in the world turned off.

The boy heaved himself onto her brother, weaponless but for the hands he used to _beat, beat, beat_ into her brother’s face, over and over and over until there was nothing left.

Hollowness seemed to rent the kitchen; silent horror filled every crack, every inch of the space.

She’d been right, she thought numbly.

Shawn _was_ coming home.

He was coming home in a box.

 

 

Beth leapt away from Randall, from those cold, hungry eyes of his and the leering smile pointed directly at her.

“Afraid, sunshine?” he asked casually, as if he were inquiring about the weather.

Beth’s jaw snapped in determination. She raised her chin, haughtily, “Of you? Not hardly; ain’t never been afraid of a rat.”

His eyes narrowed dangerously.

“Now, that weren’t very nice,” he stalked toward her, gaze flicking over her body, resting on the knife clutched in her thin hand. “Pretty blade, you got there; pretty blade for a pretty thing.”

Beth looked at the knife then back at Randall. She’d always been good with distances – Maggie’d used to say it was ‘cause Beth liked to run and every good runner knows how to judge the space from one point to another. She shifted her hold on the handle, rotated the point downwards.

She gave Randall a saccharine smile, batting her eyelashes foolishly, “You want a better look at it?” She launched herself forward, knife arm raised, poised for Randall’s eye socket.

The weight of her brought him to the ground, the tip of her knife catching him just under his left eye. With a holler he threw her off him and Beth hit the hard-packed dirt with a thud, air rushing out of her lungs. She rolled onto her hands and knees, darted away toward the brush but something caught hold of her long ponytail – yanked her backwards.

It was Ben, the boy whose dark eyes and dark hair made his pale skin look hollow and lifeless – as if he were already a corpse, wandering around in this arena at Randall’s back like there was a collar around his neck.

His arms were like iron bands around her though as he pulled her to her feet. Randall was slower to get up and Beth was pleased to see blood running freely down his face from her gash. He was angry, furious in fact.

 _Good_ , she thought humorlessly, _angry makes you stupid_.

Randall wiped at the blood, flicking it off onto the plants at their feet. “You ain’t got a lot a manners, do you sunshine girl?” He reached out to her, bloody fingertips running across her neck.

Beth shivered despite herself.

“Might just have t’ teach you a lesson, ‘fore we kill ya,” he hummed, smirking, his eyes flashing. She saw it again, that same hunger she seen at the interviews; the same lust for victory and flesh and death and destruction – the very same look the boy who’d killed her brother had worn.

To Randall, she would be all of those things; destruction and victory in one.

His hand, still caressing her, wove beneath her hair, closed harshly around the base of her skull; he threw her, stumbling toward a tree. She crashed into it, the skin of her cheek scraping against the rough bark.

Then Randall was there, behind her, pulling the backpack off her arms, pressing close to her – so close she could taste his breath as he spoke in her ear, “Don’t worry, little girl, I’m a _real_ good teacher.”

Beth swallowed painfully, pushing the disgust and fear down as far as it would go. She let her eyes drop shut, steeled her mind against what she was sure would come.

Randall would rape her, right here in front of every camera – because assuredly there wasn’t a single thing going on elsewhere in the Games that was more dramatic than this – and her family would be forced to watch, at home on the spotty little television in their kitchen, a place that had become synonymous with horror and death.

And Daryl too, all the way back in Terminus, as far away from her as possible. She could just imagine him sitting there, hands fisting in anger; she wondered if he’d keep his promise now – to let them go, the dead ones – after seeing this.

Randall ran a hand down her chest, gripped her breast roughly.

“Just kill her, Randall,” Hayley snapped, only a hint of begging in her voice. Perhaps she felt sorry for Beth; perhaps there was even the same guilt there that weighed on Beth’s heart – the guilt of not helping someone in distress.

Perhaps she wasn’t quite the monster that her companions were. Or perhaps she’d just seen Randall do this before.

Whatever it was that drove her to speak, Hayley was nonetheless ignored. Instead, it seemed to spurn Randall on, as if he hoped to make Hayley suffer as well. He pawed at the straps of Beth’s tank top, pulling them aside and running his tongue along the pale skin of her shoulder.

“Hmm, figures you’d taste like peaches,” he muttered and Beth could hear the smirk in his voice. “I’m gonna have you, every which way I want, ‘til you’re broken and beggin’ and then, I’m gonna cut you open, see if you really are made of sunlight.”

“So do it,” she hissed, her face held tight against the tree.

He paused for split second and Beth caught his confusion from the corner of her eye.

 _He ain’t used to it_ , she thought bitterly, _ain’t used to girls not fighting._

He was used to being powerful, to his victims praying for mercy and struggling to get away from him. It got him off. Well, she wouldn’t do either of those things. If he was going to rape and kill her, he was going to have to do it on his own.

He regained himself, pressed impossibly closer, “You’re gonna die screamin’.”

She glared, “what you waitin’ for then? Huh? Do it – whatever you think you’re gonna do, just do it.”

“You think I won’t?” his voice came out hoarse.

Beth chuckled, “Think you _can’t_. Think you need girls t’ fight you off, makes you feel strong. Little old me, though, here I am and you can’t do anythin’ about it, can ya?”

Randall grabbed her shoulder, spun her around as he stepped away from her. Beth kept laughing, couldn’t stop herself anymore even if she tried. It only made Randall more agitated.

“Shut up, you stupid bitch!” he shouted, pulling his fist back and swinging it into her jaw.

Beth leaned against the tree at her back as pain shot up through the bones of her face. She must have bit her tongue because she could taste the coppery metallic of her blood start to well in her mouth. And still she laughed.

“What’s the matter, Randall? Thought I was supposed to be screamin’ now?”

Randall roared and lunged forward, grabbing at the front of Beth’s tank tops. He jolted her forward, swung her so sharply that she didn’t have time to brace herself before her head collided with one of the rocks.

It was as if the world had exploded around her and fireworks were going off before her eyes. She slumped to the ground, her head raised toward the sky. She could see a bit of the artificial blue beyond the leafy arms of the trees and the top of the rock pile.

But then it wasn’t the fake sky of the arena anymore; it was the wide, open cloud-dotted expanse of District Eleven. The ground beneath her was no longer the dirt and dried leaves, the stony mud but the gentle, scratchy grass of the meadow behind her house and she was lying there, peacefully; not dying but waking up from a nap.

She wasn’t alone, either, in this impossible place.

She let her head loll to the side, felt the edges of the meadow grass brushing against her face. Maggie was beside her, stretched out amongst wildflowers too, looking beautiful and happy and all the things Beth had ever wanted for her sister.

It wasn’t real, of course, but it was perfect just the same.

“I miss you,” Beth said, tears pricking the corners of her eyes.

“Miss you too, Bethy,” Maggie replied, smiling.

“I don’t think I’m comin’ home,” Beth whispered.

Maggie shook her head, fondness echoing in her voice, “Ain’t over yet, doodlebug.”

“Feels like it,” Beth sighed, turning away from Maggie and looking back at the sky. “You ever think about how Shawn died? You think maybe he saw this, too?”

Maggie laughed lightly, “What d’ you think this is, Bethy?”

Beth shrugged, “Maybe heaven.”

Maggie hummed thoughtfully.

“It’d be a good heaven,” Beth added. She could feel her fingers growing cold.

 _I’m dying_ …

Maggie tensed, pushed herself onto her elbows, “Someone’s comin’ Bethy.”

Beth sat up sharply, eyes searching the tree line, impossibly farther away than it was in the reality of back home. But whatever Maggie had seen, Beth could not find it.

“Maggie, I don’t see anybody,” Beth glanced back at her sister but Maggie was gone.

Beth was alone.

Nothing moved; not even the insects made a noise.

It was as if everything were dead.

Something in her chest grew tight; some dark feeling creeping around her heart – it was fear. The same fear that had haunted her since Shawn had died on that television screen all those years ago – the fear that had gripped her every year on Reaping Day: that she would die alone, without a soul by her side, gutted and mutilated in the arena.

“Maggie?” she breathed her sister’s name once then again, frantic, “Maggie!”

“Quit hollerin’.”

It wasn’t Maggie who suddenly dropped down on the grass beside her. Daryl rested his forearms on his knees, pulled a stalk into his fingers and played with it, giving her the same teasing look that he had the night before she’d gone into the arena.

“Good lord, Greene; want the whole place t’ hear ya?”

“You here t’ tell me that I better get off my skinny little ass?” His presence stamped the fear back down; made the birds sing and cicadas chirp again.

Daryl simply threw a look at her out of the corner of his eye. Of course that’s what he was here to tell her.

The joking in Beth’s voice faded a bit, “Don’t know if I can, Mr. Dixon.”

Daryl dropped his head, eyes fixed on his hands; his next words were muttered low, “Optin’ out ain’t a choice, Beth.”

“You never called me Beth,” she said, half a whisper.

His eyes found hers, held them, “Did once.”

That night, the same night; she gone inside and she’d thought – dared to even _hope_ – that he’d whispered good night to her, that he’d spoken her first name aloud.

Perhaps she hadn’t imagined it then; maybe that’s why her subconscious was bringing it up again now.

“Gotta go, Beth,” he said, after what felt like an eternity between them.

She frowned, “Go where?”

But he didn’t answer her. There was something warm falling into her eyes. She tried to wipe it away but her hands came back sticky and red.

It was blood.

“Get up, Beth,” Daryl urged gently. “Get up and go home.”

She blinked and the meadow was gone; Daryl was gone.

She was still in the arena.

And someone was calling her name.

“Get up, Beth!”

Her eyes focused on a shape, high above her. Her first thought was _Daryl_ , but that was impossible.

Something small whizzed out of the trees and hit Ben squarely in the forehead. He reeled backwards, pressing both hands to the place where he’d been hit.

“Let’s go, Beth!” the voice shouted again.

Slowly recognition sunk in; she knew that voice – had heard it plenty over the last few days, always charming and kind, polite and resigned. In fact, it was usually assuring her that she’d be the one to make it back home.

“Beth, move!” Finally, Patrick’s order broke through the haze.

Beth’s head was pounding and she thought she might throw up at moment but she pushed herself upward, clung to the boulders to get her on her feet. Whatever Patrick was shooting down at the others had them distracted enough that even Randall no longer cared about her.

She managed to get to her feet; her head tilting back to look for Patrick again. Her vision swam with the movement but when the spinning stopped she found him.

He was standing on the edge of a tree branch, centered directly over the top of the pile of rocks. In his hand was a long, metallic spear – enough like Shawn’s that it made her breath catch for a moment – but he wasn’t using the spear as a weapon, at least not in the way Beth expected. Instead, he had the spear tip dug into a space between the rocks and he seemed to be waiting.

He looked down at her, “Run!”

Beth didn’t wait a moment longer. She darted beneath his tree, as fast as her feet could carry her. She spun, only for an instant, to watch as Patrick levered the spear underneath the boulder, as the heavy rock shifted just so – just _enough_ – to come crashing down the hill toward Randall and the others, knocking the rest of the precarious pile along with it.

She turned away then. She didn’t need to see what happened.

She kept running. A small copse of trees drew her attention and she peeled into it, dropping to the ground at the base of an oak. The roots were large with space enough between them that she could tuck herself in and wait.

For she would wait for him now that she’d found him.

A cannon blast split the forest. 

Beth hoped it was for Randall.

After minutes or perhaps hours, she wasn’t sure, Beth finally saw a figure emerging from the trees in the distance: Patrick – carrying her backpack.

Using the oak to support her, Beth pushed herself to her feet carefully as Patrick pulled to a stop in front of her.

“You look like hell,” he said, teasing. Then he pulled her bag off his shoulder and held it out to her, “Brought this back for you.”

“Thanks,” she replied, slipping the straps over her arms.

“This too,” he gripped the handle of her knife in slim fingers. Beth glanced up, suddenly wary.

 _I’m bein’ ridiculous_ , she thought; this was _Patrick_ – the boy who cried when his name was read, who was certain and unwavering in his belief that it would be _her_ not him who would be going home, who had just _saved her life_ – and yet…

He flipped then knife around, held the blade between his fingers instead, and presented her with the smooth wooden handle.

Then he smiled, “Good t’ see you, Beth Greene.”

And Beth felt a weight lift off chest; the corners of her mouth pulled upwards, the first real smile she’d worn in days.

This was Patrick; this was her friend _._

She _wasn’t_ alone here, after all.

“You too, Patrick; you too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay, Patrick saves the day! So I have been planning this little Beth/Patrick reunion for, well, I don't know how long and I really wanted Patrick to be the one who helps Beth escape Randall in this scene - I'm 100% for Beth kicking ass herself (and she will) but these two needed to be together again and this just seemed like the perfect way to bring them back as allies. 
> 
> So, there are a couple quotes woven in here, most notably I'd say is Shawn's. I kind of picture him a lot like Peeta in the sense that he would want to maintain who he was, for his family and for his own humanity - sadly that gets him killed. The question is: will it be the same for Beth? 
> 
> As usual, thank you all for the lovely comments/reviews, for leaving kudos and for favoriting/following/bookmarking this story.


	12. Comrades

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beth and Patrick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I don't think that there are enough apologies to make up for how long this has taken to write. For awhile it was mostly a time thing, I was busy and I didn't get very many chances to sit down and actually write anything and when I did, I didn't like it. Once I got a minute, I was hoping to deliver an extra-long chapter to you, to make up for the wait, then MSF aired and my muse's heart broke into a thousand pieces and I couldn't force myself to finish the chapter. But I don't want to leave this story, so here's that chapter I promised and even though the holidays are coming up and my heart hurts thinking about this character now, I'm hoping to finish this story up pretty quickly over the next few weeks.

**TWELVE.**

“You son of a bitch!”

Gabriel threw his arms around Daryl’s chest, pulling him backwards as he lunged for the smirking face of the District One mentor.

“Daryl,” Gabriel warned, tightening ever-so slightly. The Terminites did not abide violence between the mentors – that was for their tributes.

“Get off ‘a me,” Daryl snapped, pushing Gabriel away. He pointed at the District One mentor, “You set that little bastard on her, you sick asshole!”

The other man shrugged, nonchalantly, “Things happen in the arena, bowman; little things, like her, they ain’t like to make it. ‘Sides, she’s pretty and my boy’s got needs.”

Daryl stalked up to him, his forehead pressed against the other man’s, threatening.

“Daryl,” Rowan’s voice held just as much cautious warning as Gabriel’s had.

Daryl made no motion that he’d heard, but he didn’t immediately try to strangle the other man either, so Gabriel felt assured enough to relax slightly.

“You keep him away from her or I swear, I’ll cut yer eyes out ‘a their sockets and feed ‘em to you,” Daryl breathed, his voice low and dangerous, his threat written into every line of his body.

“Boys,” another’s man’s voice broke the tense silence. It was the other mentor from District One, Joe, a tall, grisly man with grey hair and the same hunger behind his eyes as his younger colleague.

He stepped between the two men, pushing them back a beat, “This ain’t ‘tween any ‘a us, remember? Let the kids fight it out. Now, Daryl, Len here’s a mentor, sure, but he ain’t got any more control over Randall than any ‘a us do with the others.” Daryl’s dark expression did not agree with the Joe’s appraisal.

“To be fair, Len, you know the audience don’t like such kind ‘a violence against their favorite flowers; you tell that boy t’ go after her?”

Len, eyes still on Daryl, spit back, “Nah, Joe.”

Joe appeared to be appeased, “See, now. Randall’s just doin’ what he’s doin’, ain’t the fault of anybody here.”

“Keep ‘im away from Beth and there won’t be no problem,” Daryl muttered.

“Well, Daryl, it’s the Games, you know we can’t guarantee nothin’,” Joe replied, saccharine tone dripping from every word.

A chill ran down Gabriel’s spine; Len, perhaps, had been telling the truth about not urging Randall to go after Beth, but Joe, he was a different story entirely.

“Daryl,” Gabriel placed a gentle hand on the man’s shoulder, hesitant enough not to spook him but insistent, nonetheless. “We should make sure Beth’s alright.”

There was another moment of tension, another beat when Gabriel thought Daryl might simply throw care aside and leap at Len, then the man stepped away, turned from the other mentors and stalked back to his seat in front of the monitors.

Gabriel let out a breath.

His gaze met Rowan’s across the distance between them and he knew she was as glad that Daryl had backed down as he; now they simply had to keep him controlled until they could bring Beth home safely.

Gabriel’s eyes turned to the screens on the wall in front of them. Beth was still there, still alive – she’d worried him for a minute there, lying prone on the ground as blood pooled from her head. And Daryl – well, it was no wonder he’d gone after Len the minute Beth had escape safely – Gabriel had never seen someone go so white, so quickly, as Daryl had when he’d realized Randall was heading directly into Beth’s path.

Quick thinking and luck had saved their girl made of sunshine; Gabriel only hoped that their luck would last.

* * *

Beth watched the back of Patrick’s dark head as she followed him through the woods. The trees were thicker here, denser than she’d experienced in the arena before. _Better hiding spots_ , she thought, examining a particularly wide pine as they passed beneath its boughs.

Patrick seemed pretty well-off, actually, considering he’d been so certain of his demise back in Terminus. He didn’t look like he’d been in any serious fights, even though his glasses were smudged and dirty. He was a bit skinnier, as if he hadn’t eaten much in the last couple of days – but that was to be expected.

“Where are we goin’?” she asked, after another few minutes. They’d already been walking for a while and the sun had long since moved past its zenith.

“Place I been camped out in,” Patrick replied, sliding into another thick patch of trees. “Found it on the first day and I couldn’t bear to give it up. Come see.”

Beth stopped short as she followed Patrick’s outstretched arm up, up, up the branches of a sturdy oak. Nestled in arms of the tree was a basket, large enough for at least one person – maybe two – made from sticks and twigs woven tightly together.

She glanced at Patrick, “Did you find this?”

Patrick shrugged, “Made it.”

He grabbed her wrist before she had a chance to say anything more – not that she could speak through her surprise – and pulled her to the base of the tree. Low branches, easy to climb up from the forest floor, had been cut away, leaving smooth, pale wounds on the trunk. Instead, a loop of rope served to help them pull themselves onto higher limbs.

All Patrick had to do was pull the rope up and his assailants would be stuck on the ground while he roosted in the top of a tree.

 _He should have gotten more than a six_ , Beth thought as she pulled herself over the edge of the basket and flopped onto the floor. Patrick had been busy the last few days: he had an assortment of things tucked into the nest, including a thin blanket, a tin pan and a canteen for water.

“How’d you do all this?” Beth breathed surveying the nest. Patrick could easily out-survive everyone in this shelter he’d created.

Patrick shrugged again, “Always liked building things, I guess. There was a saw at the container – I grabbed it and took off; found a backpack the next day – somebody dropped it, I think, I mean there wasn’t a lot in it – no food or water – but it’s all been useful.”

“Everythin’s useful,” Beth remarked, leaning back against the edge of the nest. It wasn’t soft, or particularly warm, but it was still the most comfortable Beth had been in a week.

Yet, as she shifted a little, Beth felt the places on her arms and shoulders where Randall had grabbed her. Her jaw ached something fierce and her head was still throbbing, though the blood had finally ebbed.

“Here,” Patrick said, tossing her a bit of fabric. “Clean up a bit, make you feel better.”

Beth didn’t think she’d ever feel _better_ but she didn’t mention that to Patrick. Instead she used a couple drops of water from her canteen and wiped the blood from her face, careful to be gentle around her scraped cheek.

She must look a horrible mess, she thought bitterly, but she couldn’t help be grateful that a mess was all it was.

“Thank you,” she whispered after a quiet moment. “I don’t think I’d have made it out ‘a that without you.”

Patrick smiled softly, “Nah, I think you’d ‘a been fine. You’re Beth Greene, after all.”

She grinned a little at his teasing but her eyes dropped to her hands and she remembered the feeling of powerlessness under Randall’s bruising grip.

“Maybe,” she admitted, “but I’m glad it was you anyway.”

“Yeah, well, you can thank Daryl for it really,” Patrick replied, wrapping his jacket around his shoulders and settling further into the nest.

Beth frowned, eyebrows turning down in confusion, “What ‘a you mean? Why?”

“That spear you saw, the one I used to knock down the boulders, he sent me that not ten minutes before I heard Randall and you. I think he was using it to lead me to you, actually. At least, I wasn’t goin’ in the direction you needed until I heard the parachute,” Patrick leveled a sobering look at her.

He might not have found her; she might have been tortured at Randall’s hand if Daryl hadn’t sent him the spear.

Something in Beth’s chest struggled with the thought.

Patrick was watching her carefully when Beth looked up again. He seemed to be waiting for something; after a moment, he nodded, more to himself than anything, “Yeah, I thought he’d picked the one.”

Beth frowned again, “Hmm? One what?”

“One he was goin’ to save,” Patrick replied. “I was pretty sure it was you back in Terminus; now it’s definite.”

Beth pulled out some of the meat sticks from her bag, thankful for a turn back to familiar, albeit awful, conversation between them, “How’d you know he wasn’t sendin’ you that spear to use as a weapon for yourself?”

Patrick took one of the sticks from her outstretched hand, “Pfft, please; he’s been rootin’ for you since the beginning – think he got kind of struck when you volunteered for Sophia.”

“Struck?” she asked, chewing on her meat stick.

“Yeah, you know, like by lightning? You surprised him – I think he’s been kind of, I don’t know, _interested_ in keepin’ you alive since then,” Patrick explained. It was clear from the way he was gnawing on his meat stick that Beth had been right about Patrick’s eating habits over the last few days.

“He’s been yellin’ at me or ignorin’ at me, you mean,” she said, even though she didn’t really mean it.

She didn’t mention how her hallucinations of him had been helping ever since she’d gotten away from the container.

“Maybe, but everythin’ he’s said’s kept you alive so far so…” he trailed off, far more interested in finishing off his meat stick.

She didn’t mind the quiet, even though she’d been living in a silence for the last few days. Patrick’s words, however, chased one another around her brain: had Daryl really been helping her since she’d first stepped onto the stage?

What would she have done if he hadn’t sent Patrick to save her?

Was she really the one he’d pick to save?

She glanced at Patrick, licking his fingers clean with a happy smile on his face, her stomach dropping painfully: for her to be saved, Patrick would have to die.

She looked at the last bit of her meat stick, stomach suddenly rolling. 

* * *

Patrick volunteered to take first watch that night although Beth couldn’t have stayed awake even if she tried. She pulled her blanket close around her shoulders, pressing deep into the wall of the nest, ignoring the digging of the twigs into her back.

It didn’t take long before the world of the arena faded and reformed into something else, somewhere else.

It was a place she knew, a place she’d been only twice before: the Justice Building in District Eleven.

But it wasn’t the room she’d said goodbye to her family and friends before boarding the train to Terminus; it was the only other place she’d ever been inside the great stone building: the Departing Room.

This was where the families of the dead tributes waited to receive the bodies of their children, their siblings.

She wasn’t alone in this horrible room, though her family – her father, Maggie, even Annette – all stood steadfastly apart from her, silent. It might have been a scene taken directly from her memory of the day that Shawn had come home.

The doors opened, creaking and groaning from ancient hinges, and the simple pine box that would be the coffin of all the tributes was wheeled into the room. Beth felt her breath catch, the same moment of last hope that perhaps they’d gotten it wrong, perhaps it wasn’t Shawn in the box but some other dead boy and her brother was still alive, fighting in the arena.

The box stopped in the center of the cold, grey room and Beth heard Maggie choke on a sob, bury her face into their father’s shoulder. But Beth had to see – the same brief flicker of hope driving her forward, she had to be _sure_ – her fingers curled over the rim of the box, steadied her trembling hands.

She leapt back, a gasp tearing through her chest.

It wasn’t Shawn in the box; it was her own face staring back at her, lifeless. But worse, so much worse than it was back in Patrick’s nest. Her skin was covered in purpling bruises, as if someone had beaten her, broke her face a hundred times over.

 _Randall_ , the name washed over her. Randall had done this to her dream-self.

She squeezed her eyes shut tight, begged her mind to wake up.

But when she opened them again it was Patrick in the box instead of her, blood splattered across his chin, the point of a sword sticking up through his chest.

Beth felt tears start to roll down her cheeks, catching in her eyelashes as she tried to block out the sight of her companion’s face.

Then it was Maggie, her neck twisted at a grotesque angle.

Beth’s hollow sob rang in her ears.

Daryl’s face looked up at her, one eye gone, a hollow bloodied gash all that remained.

Her father with his head half cut off; the little girl, Mika, whose blood was pooling across her pale shirt.

Every one more horrible the last; she screamed, shouted, cried.

 _Wake up_ , she begged, _wake up_.

“Hey, Greene,” his voice was calm as it always was in her head.

She opened her eyes; they were back in the meadow, sitting in the long stringy grass once more. It wasn’t summer anymore though – winter had set in around them, the same winter that she’d first seen him traipsing through the woods at dawn.

She breathed, tried to relax, focused on him and his face. He looked worried about her, or as worried as Daryl Dixon ever seemed to be about her.

“I’m okay,” she said after a moment, determined.

“I know,” he answered. “You’re fine.”

She nodded, looking at him. He looked at her as he always did inside her head: like some mix of the man she’d always noticed on edges of District Eleven, lonely and solemn, and the teasing, gentle, almost-shy man she’d spoken to on her last night in Terminus.

“Why’d you pick me?” she asked.

He simply stared at her, far longer than the real Daryl Dixon would have looked at her, “You know.”

But it wasn’t good enough; she was suddenly desperate for an answer that she knew dream-Daryl wouldn’t even be able to give her.

“But _why_?”

He didn’t answer, didn’t make a single sound as he watched her. But he couldn’t answer, after all; he was nothing but a figment of her dream world. He didn’t know the truth any more than she did.

“Time t’ wake up, Beth,” he said gently.

Patrick was shaking her awake with a hand on her arm, softly so as not to startle her.

They shifted positions without speaking and Beth trained her eyes on the forest floor until dawn.

* * *

Beth dug her fingers into the dirt, scooping a small hole in the damp earth. She brushed the pile of twigs Patrick had collected into the hole and wiped her hands on her thighs, leaving dirt streaks down her legs. He was busy untying the squirrel from their snare, jabbering mindlessly while they worked. She’d been living in silence for so long before finding him again that the sound was comforting even though she wasn’t really listening to him.

She pulled a piece of glass from her bag – one of the chunks of the box of iodine tablets that she’d crushed in her fall into the streambed – and a thin slice of the mirror box her blanket had come in. She’d seen Shawn do this before, when they were children at home in District Eleven; it seemed right to bring it back when she was here, trying to survive in a way he’d been unable to do.

The artificial sun filtered in through the trees and she blinked as she gazed up at it, angling the mirror down onto the twigs. After a few moments swirls of smoke began to spiral into the air. She smiled, hoped her sponsors would be proud of that.

The squirrel was a bit stringy and greasy but Beth hadn’t felt so full in a long time. Patrick, too, seemed more than pleased by their meal, juices dripping down his chin.

She knew she shouldn’t have let it get to her, this feeling of peace and comfort; she should have been on the lookout, constantly vigilant – she’d seen how fast the Games could turn, how fast they turned for Shawn – only a moment from triumph to devastation.

Still, being with Patrick, smiling, eating something other than processed meat sticks – she felt, as she had every once in a while, that the Games were far behind them, that she and her friend were merely enjoying a break in their day.

It was foolish; it always was.

“C’mon,” Patrick said, grinning, pushing his glasses up his nose, “You used to sing at the festivals all the time.”

She remembered the festivals that he was talking about: District Eleven used to hold them at the end of the harvest season. The whole district would gather in the town square, decorate the faces of the buildings with garlands of corn and squash; they’d spend the days with music and dancing and happiness. Beth had always loved singing songs for her family and friends during the celebrations but she’d never expected other people to remember.

“That was ages ago,” she remarked, digging the toe of her boot into the dirt at her feet.

They didn’t have the festivals anymore: two boys – friends of Shawn, actually – had shouted protests against Terminus, demanded an end to the Games. They’d been hung in the center square and the festivals had been declared as the breeding ground of their sedition.

“Still,” Patrick smiled, “I always loved hearing you sing. I think lots ‘a people did: made them feel lighter for a while.”

Beth grinned faintly, feeling that familiar sense of embarrassment wash over her: it was the same feeling she got whenever Patrick talked about how she’d be the victor. She didn’t understand how he was so sure of it, or how he could think that she truly mattered to anyone other than her family.

“Will you sing for me now?” Patrick asked his expression still teasing.

Beth rolled her eyes; singing would attract the kind of attention they didn’t want or need. He knew that of course, but she kept her tone playful when she denied his request. Patrick laughed, his head tossing back.

It was a strange moment, she thought, hearing laughter in the arena. It was like it didn’t belong here, among this death; yet it was the first sound that hadn’t felt artificial, hadn’t felt like a product of the Terminites manipulations.

Patrick sobered a little, a shadow falling across his face, “Yeah, this ain’t the place for lightness, is it? It’s more a graveyard – we’d need a funeral song.”

Beth bit her tongue; the look on his face told her not to mention that she knew a few of those, had hummed one at Shawn’s and then Annette’s burials.

“Beth,” he said suddenly. She turned to him, blinking away the memories.

“Do you think we’ve got any chance here?” he continued, eyes cutting to her.

Honestly, she was surprised either of them had survived this long. For a moment she opened her mouth to pacify him – tell him that of course there was a chance, they were here, weren’t they – but he didn’t need to hear that and she didn’t want to lie. They’d always been honest between them, truthful.

She shrugged, “I think it’s a miracle you and I are sittin’ here now. I’ve got no idea what’s gonna happen in an hour, a day – we might make it, we might not – all’s I know is this: we got ‘a have a little faith and we got ‘a be smart about survivin’. Our best chance is together.”

Neither of them mentioned that only one of them would be going home.

There was only one victor in the Games, after all.

* * *

It was stupid.

She’d been stupid and careless and everything she’d warned Patrick that they couldn’t be. _Be smart_ , she’d said; _be aware_ , she’d warned. Warnings and commands could do nothing to make her see the carefully hidden trap beneath the leaf meal at their feet.

Her eyes had been on human threats lurking just beyond her vision and she’d stepped right onto the metal plate, shouting as the claws snapped around the bones in her ankle, sending her sprawling to the forest floor.

Patrick was at her side in a moment, on his knees beside her, digging the leaves away from the trap. She hissed as he pressed his fingers against her foot.

“Can you get it off?” she asked, tears welling in her eyes. They needed to move quickly, anyone nearby would’ve heard her shout and was probably on their way, hoping for an easy kill.

“Hang on,” Patrick replied, hopping back onto his feet. Beth watched him scurry around the nearby tress, eyes scanning the ground rapidly. _Looking for more traps_ , she wondered but he stopped when his eyes lit on a large branch, fallen and half-covered on the ground.

He forced the branch into the space between the teeth, the same way he’d leveraged the boulders during her rescue, pressing down until the trap gave beneath his weight, snapping back open and releasing her foot.

“Are you okay, can you move it?” Patrick’s voice was shaky and Beth understood his fear all too well.

If she’d broken her ankle, she was done for. She needed to be able to run – sooner or later, they always run.

She rolled her foot a little, felt pain shooting through her calf; it was bitter but not unbearable.

“I think it’s just bruised,” she said, despite the hiss in her voice.

“Think you can try walkin’ on it?” he asked, standing and offering her a hand.

Beth nodded and grit her teeth, grasping his palm in her own. He pulled her up, let her lean against him as she placed her foot gingerly on the ground. A whimper escaped her throat and Patrick looked frightened once more.

 _Be strong_ , she demanded, tilting her chin up and steeling her spin. She would not be brought down by a Terminite trap, not like this.

“Let’s keep goin,” she urged, limping forward a half-step.

Patrick was at her side in an instant, a hand on her shoulder to pause, “Maybe you should rest for a bit.”

Beth shook her head, “No, someone might ‘a heard me scream. We can’t stay here.”

Patrick swallowed, opened his mouth as if to argue then shut it again and nodded.

In the end, she’d only made it a few more yards on her own before Patrick had ducked under her arm and helped her limp along the forest floor.

* * *

He was chatting again, a running stream of noise that she only half-heard. It didn’t matter, of course, he wasn’t saying anything terribly important and it wasn’t as if he expected her to listen – it was merely something to break up the silence of the their time there. And Beth sensed that he’d been quite for too long, same as her.

Now he sat behind her, his voice a constant flow, busying his hands with strings of grass and twigs, the same way he’d done with the bread during their lunches. Beth turned away from him, hoping to shield her discomfort – he didn’t need to see her weakness any more than he’d already been forced to.

She rolled her ankle experimentally. It still stung fiercely and she glared at it in frustration. They’d had to stop for her, to give her a break, and it made her angry. She’d already survived a walker and Randall and that other tribute at the container – to be brought down by an ankle injury, well, it was infuriating.

Patrick assured her that they would only break for a few minutes, claimed that he was simply worn out but she knew it was her; knew it was the whiteness of her face and sheen of sweat on her skin which had forced him to suggest a stop.

After all, in the two days since she’d found him, they’d both gotten decent sleep – far less worried about something or someone sneaking up on them in the dark with the other person guarding their back. Patrick was probably more rested than he’d been in the entirety of his time in the arena.

And that just made her angrier at herself.

Her thoughts drifted to Daryl Dixon – as they were wont to do so often these days – and she felt ashamed as what he must be thinking of her now: infirmed because of her stupidity, because she hadn’t been paying enough attention. Perhaps even now he was changing his bets, hedging toward Patrick who could build fantastic things out of twigs and had managed to survive this horrible place with almost no help from sponsors.

She huffed into the silence of the afternoon.

 _Silence_ – Patrick –

Beth spun around sharply, frantic, and it felt as if the world had suddenly gone stark.

He was staring at her, open-mouthed, eyes wide and afraid, skin already draining of color.

There was a sword point protruding from the center of his chest.

Beth had only a moment to gasp in horror – flashes of nightmare tumbling across her eyes – before the solid wall of a body came crashing into her chest, knocking her off the rock she’d been perched on.

They tumbled to the ground, grappling. Beth lay on her back, trapped beneath the weight of her assailant – it was the girl from District Four, one of the twins. She looked more ragged than the last time Beth had seen her, thinner and more gaunt than before. Her eyes though, they were crazed, horrifying.

Beth struggled as the girl clawed her, knife in hand. The point pressed closer and closer to Beth’s skin. One thought, a single notion, raced through Beth’s brain over and over again: _survive_. Beth knocked the girl’s hand away, again and again – the girl might have been thin but she was almost entirely muscle and sinew. She was strong.

The point of the blade cut against Beth’s throat, blood welling up like a pin prick.

She had no idea where Patrick was, if he was even still alive.

 _Roll_ , she demanded, twisting her shoulders back and forth, trying to shift their momentum and tumble again. One roll, two rolls – Beth dragged her nails against the girl’s face, her fingers digging deep enough to draw blood trails down the girl’s skin.

They twisted again and the girl pressed a knee against Beth’s bruised ribs, forcing a cry of pain from Beth’s throat. The girl merely laughed: the same humorless sound she’d breathed before she’d gutted that girl on the streambed.

It sparked something in Beth, something deep and angry, something colder than she’d felt before.

Her free hand reached out, fingers tripping against the ground, searching. They touched upon a cool, rough surface – she slammed the rock against the side of the girl’s head. The brunette lurched sideways, blood already gushing from her temple.

Beth swung again and again and then the girl stopped moving.

 _Patrick_ , her brain screamed again. She pushed herself to her feet, painfully, she spun around and her throat caught: _the brother_.

But he was not standing behind her, ready to slice her apart in retaliation. He was on his knees, hands desperately trying to stem the blood flow from a jagged slit across his throat.

Patrick was leaning heavily against the boulder, his breathing labored, blood-smeared saw in his hand. As the District Four boy fell into a heap, Patrick listed sideways. Beth rushed forward, catching him just before he touched the ground.

The front of his shirt was a wet stain of red and his skin was slick with pearls of sweat. His eye lashes flickered slowly against his cheeks.

“Patrick,” she breathed, feeling her throat close. She pressed a hand to his chest – she could stop this, she could save him – blood oozed from between her fingers.

“Looks like I was right after all,” he remarked, his breathy laugh turning into a wet cough. His teeth were tinged with blood.

Beth shook her head, “No, you’ll be fine.”

He smiled at her lie – at her _hope_ , “Always knew you’d be the one.”

She pressed harder against his chest and her vision blurred with tears, “Stop. You’ll be alright – you’re gonna go home, Patrick –,” she remembered his wish, whispered to her before they’d entered the arena, “You’re gonna see your family again.”

“My family’s all dead, Beth,” he sighed – there was blood at the corner of his mouth, “They’re just waiting for me.”

She choked on a sob, hair sticking to the wetness of her face. Tears were running across her cheeks, salting her tongue. He couldn’t leave her – he _couldn’t_ – she couldn’t be alone in here again.

“I won’t make it without you,” she sobbed. She wouldn’t – the silence would creep back in and she’d lose everything about herself here in this horrible place of death.

“You’ll be fine,” he hummed her words back to her, “You’re gonna win this, you’re gonna go home, see your dad and sister again, see Daryl again, sing songs again – promise me you’ll still sing, Beth.” Her name was choked on blood.

She nodded, “I’ll still sing.”

Patrick seemed satisfied, his eyes drifting shut, “It’s okay, you know; I’m goin’ home.”

She brushed some damp hair away from his face.

“Will you sing to me now?”

She bit her lip, nodded again though he couldn’t see her face. A song came to her like a whisper, a tune that her father had once hummed at night by their fire – he’d used to like hearing his daughters sing the words during the long winter evenings.

She breathed the lyrics into the silence of the arena and as she sang, it seemed even the birds had lost their voices. 

“ _Oh, all the comrades that ‘ere I’ve had  
_ _Are sorry for my going away,  
_ _And all the sweethearts that ‘ere I’ve had  
_ _Would wish me one more day to stay;_

 _But since it falls unto my lot_  
 _That I should rise and you should not:_  
 _I’ll gently rise and I’ll softly call,  
_ _Goodnight and joy be with you all._

_Goodnight and joy be with you all._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um, two things: first, I'm sure Patrick's nest is unbelievable but I don't care - he was a character with a lot of potential and his love of LEGOs made me think that he would probably be a decent engineer had the apocalypse never happened. Second, I've never eaten squirrel so I have no idea if my description is even slightly accurate. 
> 
> And I'm extremely sorry that, after having suffered during the MSF, I killed Patrick off - to be fair, I'd been planning that since the beginning of the story - there can only be one victor, remember. Still, it was difficult to let him go because he's been very much the voice of the audience in this story - seeing the things that Beth can't or refuses to notice.


	13. Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They didn’t know she wasn’t that easy to kill anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should just stop staying when I'm going to update this because I can never seem to actually make that happen. Another overdue chapter, yay!

**THIRTEEN.**  

She needed to move.

Any minute now, she knew, a hovercraft would come to lift Patrick’s body out of the arena, return him to the Remake Center – fix him up so that ( _as if_ ) people might forget what had actually happened to him, how he’d really died.

Who would claim his body? _My family’s all dead_ – who would take him, bury him in the cemetery on the edge of the district, beneath the oak that had seen hundreds of funerals?

She’d never feared _that_ – never worried whether she’d be cared for once her body was home – she had Maggie and her father, probably even Glenn; her grip on Patrick’s cold hand tightened. But what about all the kids who didn’t have anyone left? It wasn’t as if Patrick was the only tribute who hadn’t had any family to mourn him – what happened to them?

Patrick had saved her life, he’d been with her through all of this – and now he was going home to be buried in a plain pine box, by the Terminite Peacekeepers and no one would say anything about how he was strong or brave, or how he died to save someone else, or how he smiled, or about the way he pushed up his glasses when he was nervous, or that his conviction was the only thing keeping her going. They would speak no words, give him no prayers – just send him off into the next life with some dirt on his coffin.

The thought made her angry – so much angrier than she’d been – because that’s all they were to the Terminites: dirt on a coffin. Sure, they played dress-up and smiled and waved all pretty-like, but at the end of the day, they were nothing but a number on a betting slip. They were pieces, not people – pieces to be moved around, manipulated; killed off to the benefit of others. She wasn’t a girl, she didn’t matter to _real_ people – she was just a _character_ – the girl made of sunshine – and they could do whatever they wanted to her: rip her from her family, throw her into Hell just to watch what she would do, watch how people would react to her struggles, to her death – a pawn.

_Well, screw them_ , she thought bitterly, _screw all ‘a them – I ain’t a plaything_.

And neither was Patrick – she wouldn’t let him be, not now, not when she could do something, because he was wrong: his family wasn’t all dead – _she_ was his family and her family was his family and they would take his body when he got back to District Eleven.

They would, she knew, because she would have insisted.

_Time t’ go, Beth_ , Daryl’s voice muttered.

He was right: it was time to clear out, to let them bring Patrick back to her family – _their_ family – time to go.

She pushed up onto her knees and leaned over him, his skin pale but for the darkening splatters of blood. Gentle fingertips brushed his hair away from his face, adjusted his glasses, folded his hands – he would look like a person when they took him, when they showed him on the screen – she left the blood though, so they wouldn’t forget, so it wouldn’t look peaceful or pleasant or any of the things they pretended death in the arena was. This, if nothing else, would be real.

“I won’t say goodbye,” she whispered, “I hate goodbyes.”

She pressed a kiss to the spot just above his eyebrow, squeezed his hands one last time, and stood. His pack was on the ground beside the boy from District Four and she swept it onto her shoulder. For a moment she stared at the weapons littering the ground – her knife was still at her hip – but the others she left on the bodies. She didn’t want them, couldn’t have held the sword that killed Patrick anyway, and they would be scooped up and out of the arena this way.

She could already hear the faint whirring of the hovercraft approaching as she took her first steps away from the camp but she didn’t watch, didn’t turn back.

She walked, kept walking.

* * *

The world had lost its sound; its color had faded.

The birds stared at her, opened their mouths; but where once she had heard music, there was only silence.

Silence in an endless gray wood.

Right foot; left foot; right again; left now; forward –

Pause; rest; eat; drink; move – always move – keep moving.

Don’t stop.

Don’t stop – never stop – don’t give up – never give up –

Give up.

* * *

Beth could only dimly remember stumbling through the forest on her first day in the arena, half-aware and more conscious of the hallucinations in her head than anything around her. She felt a bit like that again.

She couldn’t remember making the decision to go back to Patrick’s nest but suddenly there it was, the rope dangling in front of her. It struck her once more that he could have survived them all, tucked up into this sanctuary, on the edges of the arena – but he hadn’t, he was dead; dead because Daryl had sent him looking for _her_.

_Yeah, I thought he’d picked the one_ , Patrick had said – _her_ , not him. She was the reason he’d died. Beth Greene, the girl made of sunshine – a joke, she wasn’t made of sunshine. She was more like a dark cloud – a weak little girl who needed everyone else to save her, wasn’t that right? Patrick, Daryl – Maggie or Shawn back home – _it’s okay, Bethy, I’ll protect you_.

She couldn’t have climbed into the nest even if she wanted to.

She slumped down against the base of the tree. It was nearing dusk, soon the anthem would play and there would be more faces in the sky above them – one of them put there by her hand.

It had been her first kill.

The thought struck her in the chest, as if a hundred bricks had suddenly crushed down upon her – she heaved to the side and vomited, sick splashing against the leaf meal on the forest floor.

She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, exhaustion settling over her like a shroud. Her head tipped back against the rough bark of the tree, eyes fluttering shut. Being with Patrick had meant having someone to watch her back while she slept; being alone meant she ought to have been careful, ought to have found somewhere safer – but she didn’t care.

She wasn’t sure if she actually cared about anything at the moment.

_Let them come_.

The colors of the sky faded away above her as she drifted into a dreamless sleep.

The faint _ping_ startled her awake. She jolted against the tree, her bruised ribs crying out at the movement. It was dawn, the faintest tinge of pink edging the muted gray of early morning. She’d slept through the night – and she was foolishly exposed again. Daryl was probably pulling his hair out in frustration at her – she wondered how many more idiotic things she could do in here before he gave up on her entirely. She was sure she was probably nearing the limit.

Yet, there was another parachute, sitting in the dirt in front of her.

Beth rubbed a hand over her eyes and scrabbled forward on her knees. This was nothing like the last parachute he’d sent her: the container was far smaller, not even as large as her hand. She bit her lip and unlatched the lid of box.

Not for the first time, Beth was curious how Daryl seemed to know her, to know what she needed and when – he’d been surprising her since the first moment she’d met him, since she’d walked onto that stage and caught him staring at her.

No one but District Eleven would understand this gift and she wondered how he’d explained it to sponsors – maybe he hadn’t, maybe he’d just told them that this is what they needed to pay for and that was that; seemed more like Daryl in that way.

She tipped the box over and let the small green stone drop onto her palm. _Jasper_ – she’d asked her father once, when she was young, why they kept pieces of jasper on the mantle.

“It’s for us, Doodlebug; it’s to bring us peace after someone we love passes on,” he’d told her. “It’s how we grieve.”

She wrapped her hand around the faded green gem: this was a piece of home in her hand. This was the blanket once more – and yet – it felt different. It wouldn’t give her warmth, couldn’t protect her from the elements of the arena. It had no value beyond that the color reminded her of the meadows in springtime; of the calm in her father’s smile; of the hue of Maggie’s eyes; of the peace she felt at home in District Eleven.

This was just for her; for Patrick.

She didn’t cry – wouldn’t – but the broken pieces of her heart seemed to stitch back together – slowly and painfully – as she turned the little stone over and over in her fingers.

There was only one thing to do now.

Beth pushed herself to her feet, her gaze still on the jasper for a moment before she gripped it tightly; determination lit across her eyes. Patrick had believed in her. He’d been _certain_ – doubtless – that she would survive this horrible place, that she would be the victor. She’d done all she could for Patrick here: all that was left was to prove him right.

She could do this; she could _win_. She could go home.

And she _would_.

Beth pulled her knife from the sheath at her hip, tucked the jasper into her pocket, and turned toward Patrick’s tree. She tugged the rope from the basket above, let it tumble to the ground at her feet; stowed it away in her backpack. She would do one more thing for Patrick; one more thing to remind them that he’d been human.

After a few minutes, she propped his empty backpack against the base of the tree, swung her own satchel over her shoulder and turned away.

The nest sat lonely, high above the floor of the arena. No one would be able to get up there again; the Games were finished here. On the skin of the tree, in slashes as deep as she’d been capable of making, Beth had carved his name.

_Patrick_.

* * *

Beth was being watched.

It was a strange feeling, the sensation of someone’s eyes on you. There was the prickle of skin, raising the hairs on your arms; the thought to run, fly away from the stare. In the arena, the cold stone of dread settled in your stomach at the thought of someone unseen watching you. Beth’s hand gripped the handle of her knife so tightly her knuckles had gone white.

She’d been snuck up on too often in these Games. She wouldn’t let it happen again.

_I won’t be a victim anymore_ , she reminded herself. From here on out, she wasn’t going to sit passively by and try to avoid the other tributes – it wasn’t about surviving anymore; it was about winning.

_Don’t let ‘em know you’ve caught ‘em_ , Daryl’s voice warned her. Beth eased her posture a bit, relaxed her skin, let her shoulders drop. She kept moving, slowing her breathing as best she could. She wasn’t a hunter – had never had the urge to even try such a thing before – but she imagined they tried to control their breaths, to calm themselves. She could do it too.

Whoever it was thought they were hunting her but they were wrong.

She couldn’t help the grin that pulled the corner of her mouth when she heard the faint sound of movement behind her. They were following, probably unsuspecting too since they hadn’t seemed to falter in their pursuit. They thought she was a weak target, caught unawares.

They didn’t know she wasn’t that easy to kill anymore.

Ahead of her the trees narrowed, rocks seeming to grow larger and larger as they funneled into one of the great boulders. This one was bigger than any she’d seen yet: it might have been a great of smooth, flat stone wall. It would be impossible to climb out of there from the back but the smaller rocks created shadowy pockets she could easy slip into.

Where she could lay in wait for whoever it was; where she could catch them off-guard from the shadows.

Plan forming, Beth continued forward, her focus on keeping herself relaxed, on keeping her prey on the hook. She’d barely reached the place where the trees gave way to stone when an unexpected voice suddenly shouted.

“Wait!”

Beth froze, surprised. She’d had no idea who might have been tailing her – had half-hoped it was Randall – but the sound of a girl’s voice, so small and high, sent and entirely different thrill of fear through her veins.

“Don’t move!”

Daryl was very certainly shouting at the monitors that she better get her ass moving this instant; that she was an idiot for doing as she was told. There was a reason that Mika was still alive and it probably wasn’t because she’d listened when her opponents had shouted instructions at her.

Mika could be lethal; at the very least, she was not an ally.

But there had been real concern in the girl’s voice. It had stayed Beth’s movements.

She pulled her knife from her hip but didn’t shift her feet.

“Why’m I standin’ here?” she shouted back, glancing over her shoulder. After a moment, the blonde girl, covered in mud and scrapes, twigs sticking in her dirty hair, scrambling into Beth’s view; she looked alright, if not thin. Most of her baby fat had been lost in the arena.

Beth wondered what else the girl might have lost.

She looked a little wild, her eyes wide, as she moved up to Beth’s side. She wasn’t even tall enough to reach Beth’s shoulder.

“Look,” Mika pointed a wiry arm at the ground at Beth’s feet. Beth saw nothing.

“What’m I lookin’ at?” Beth asked, wary. It might have been a trap. Mika could have an ally here, hiding amongst the rocks, waiting for Beth to fall prey to the scheme. She gripped her knife tighter.

She nearly lashed out when Mika’s hand pressed against her back but it was only to shift Beth forward the barest of inches. For a moment, she frowned, confused, then she saw it: a razor-thin wire only a hair’s breadth from touching Beth’s ankle. It ran the whole length of the opening.

It _was_ a trap. It was just like the ones she’d learned in the Training Center to corral rabbits and other small game.

And she’d nearly been the game.

Beth breathed, taking a careful step backwards, away from the wire. She looked at Mika more fully then, turning to face the little girl. Patrick had paid so much more attention to the girl when they’d been in Terminus; he’d been the one who remembered her name, who’d noticed her at all.

Still, Beth could recall the image of that girl who’d sat on stage with Caesar and cautioned the audience to not count her out – and here she was still breathing when so many others had fallen.

“Thank you,” Beth said, genuinely. “What would ‘a happened if I’d tripped it?”

Mika shrugged a little, “The last one I saw was full of flame-throwers hidden in the rocks.” Her gaze dropped sadly to the ground, “That’s how I lost Noah.”

Beth swallowed the painful lump that had sprung up in her throat. Mika’d had somebody too; lost somebody. She reminded Beth cruelly of Sophia. Would Sophia have even made it as far as Mika had? How farther would Mika make it without anyone?

“You alone now?” Beth asked, her voice catching slightly on _alone_.

Mika swallowed and Beth thought she might have been holding back tears as she nodded.

“Are you?”

Beth nodded.

“But we don’t have to be,” Beth decided, sticking her hand out between them, “people don’t make it alone. They can’t. So maybe we don’t try?”

Mika hesitated, eyeing Beth’s hand warily. Not that Beth blamed her for the caution: alliances were made all the time in the arena but that didn’t change the fact that there could only be one victor. Eventually all friendships were broken.

Yet Beth was taken aback when Mika finally spoke, “I’m not a real good fighter. Noah always told me t’ hide when people came around. I won’t be a good ally.”

Beth’s eyebrows rose in surprise. She couldn’t remember a time when someone had refused an alliance because they thought _they’d_ be the weaker party. Mika didn’t want to drag her down. It was touching and also, it made Beth angry.

“Strength ain’t just about muscle, Mika,” she admonished, “I might not be able to throw a spear like Randall but that doesn’t mean I’m weak. I’m strong. And so are you – I don’t care if you have t’ hide all the time: you just saved my life. I _want_ you as an ally.”

Daryl was probably rolling his eyes.

Mika’s smile was blinding, especially amongst the smears of dirt across her face. She grabbed onto Beth’s hand, shaking it excitedly. Then, without warning, Mika dropped Beth’s hand and threw herself against Beth’s stomach, wrapping her arms around Beth’s middle. For a moment, Beth didn’t move, couldn’t.

It was odd, being hugged in the arena. The last time she’d hugged anyone had been on the rooftop of the Tower, saying goodbye to Rowan and Gabriel and Daryl.

She didn’t want to think about that morning, with Patrick by her side – still beautifully alive – so she simply tightened her arms around Mika and pressed her cheek against the girl’s head. She was, for a moment, content to simply be hugged.

A moment was all they had though.

Beth had never lived through an earthquake before – District Eleven hadn’t felt the ground shake like that in over a hundred years – but she imagined that the real ones weren’t nearly as bad as the one created by the Game-makers in that instant. She thought that the floor of the arena might simply split open with force of it all as she and Mika were thrown apart. Beth stumbled, trying to catch herself. It was no use though, especially with her weak ankle.

Her heel caught the thin wire Mika had pointed out and Beth tripped, toppling into the dirt.

All at once the trembling stopped. Beth held her breath as Mika drew herself onto her knees, staring at Beth with wide, frightened eyes. _Maybe it was a trick_ , Beth thought, helplessly, hopeful. She glanced at the rock walls beside her, half-expecting them crack open and throw a ball of blistering fire right in her face.

Nothing happened.

“Mika,” Beth whispered, worried that even her voice might trigger the Game-makers’ machines.

It wasn’t Mika she heard then though, but a sound that made her blood run cold. It was the symphony of nightmares. She swallowed, praying that she was wrong – but she wasn’t, she knew that. It had only been a matter of time, after all. The Game-makers wouldn’t waste such a perfect weapon.

_Run_ , Daryl whispered.

Beth turned her head as the sounds grew louder, doubling – no tripling. For a beat, she couldn’t see anything then shadows seemed to spring up against the smooth rock wall.

Beth scrambled to her feet, “Mika, run!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mika! Walkers! All good stuff! There's also a bunch of references to moments from the show in this chapter - the jasper thing is absolutely one of my favorites!
> 
> So, I'm thinking there will probably be about three (maybe four) more chapters to this. Some of you have mentioned a sequel, which I have definitely considered but it will depend on how I'm feeling after 5b and whether or not I'm inspired to go through another multi-chapter fic. Anyway, as always, thank you for the AMAZING reception that this story has gotten. I honestly wasn't expecting my first TWD fic to be enjoyed by even half this many people. 
> 
> To everyone who has liked/favorited/left kudos/followed/commented/bookmarked - whatever - you are the best and I am eternally grateful!


	14. Attack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She turned on her heel and walked into the forest with nothing but her blanket, the jasper and the knife at her belt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I'll be forever apologizing for how long it takes me to update this story - admittedly work and feeling less-than-inspired by the show right now makes it incredibly difficult to push myself through this. Still we have about two chapters left, I'd say. Hopefully, this is everything that you guys wanted from this story - I know the term 'romance' is applied kind of loosely to the whole thing because, let's face it, they had about two chapters together, but I hope you've enjoyed everything so far and hang on for the last few chapters!

  **FOURTEEN.**

 

“Beth!” Mika screamed, frozen in place, her face slack with fright.

Beth threw herself forward, grabbing at Mika’s small hand. Behind her the great herd of walkers kept coming, spilling from every crack – every recess of the rocks. There had to be a dozen of them, almost two, and every single one of them was a mindless killing machine. Every one of them would rip her and Mika to pieces in seconds; they wouldn’t hesitate, they weren’t built that way.

She spared them barely a glance.

_Move_ , Daryl’s voice urged; she gripped Mika’s hand tighter, forcing the little girl to keep up.

They would be overrun.

“Come on, Mika,” Beth commanded harshly. She could hear Mika whimper in response but she refused to pause: stopping meant certain death. These weren’t walkers on leashes; there was nothing to hold these monsters back.

Beth’s breath was already coming up short. Her ankle was throbbing so painfully that she feared she was doing serious damage to the bruised ligaments. Still she pushed onward. She wouldn’t break her promise to Patrick like this: she wouldn’t be killed by a walker.

“Beth,” Mika puffed, her breath was strained but she was keeping pace, “where are we going?”

Beth didn’t answer; she didn’t know. All she knew was that they had to get as far away from the pack as possible. Walkers were deadly but they weren’t known to be very smart – if they could only get far enough away, she and Mika might have a chance to survive this.

There had to be something they could do to improve their odds. Walkers hadn’t always played a large part in the Games and Beth’s knowledge of them mostly came from whispered rumors in the school hallways and what she’d learned firsthand in Terminus. She was struggling and it was getting more and more difficult to catch her breath through the dead sprint of their run.

Something – anything – _the shortest distance between two points_ – a memory of Maggie and Shawn sitting at the kitchen table, studying their math, helping Beth try to understand shapes and perimeters – the straighter they ran, the less distance between them and the walkers.

“Weave,” Beth shouted, puling Mika sharply to the left, rounding a tree closely. They curved tightly around a second tree on the right side.

Back and forth and back and forth; Mika nearly tripped as they pulled around a large pine. Beth glanced behind them, blonde ponytail whipping into her face. A few walkers stumbled behind them but none were dissuaded from their pursuit.

It wasn’t working.

Mika had noticed too, “Beth what’re we gonna do?” Her tone was heavy with fear and edged in desperation. Already, tears were welling in her large eyes and her fingers were white in Beth’s hand.

_Fantastic ally_ , Beth thought miserably, _we team up and two minutes later I’ve got us runnin’ from walkers, headin’ towards god knows who – she would ‘a been better on her own._

“Keep moving, Mika,” Beth replied, but she could feel the weight in her legs; the burn of her muscles; the tightness in her chest. She wouldn’t be able to go on much longer: sooner or later she would slow – it wouldn’t have to be much – just enough so that clawing, scraping, grasping, rotting fingers could reach her – the end of her hair, the fabric of her sleeve, the strap of her backpack – and that would be it. They would eat her slowly, consume her – she didn’t know what they’d give her family then – maybe the necklace from Sophia, or the jasper and blanket from Daryl.

Maybe they wouldn’t bother giving them anything.

If only she’d stayed in the basket, done as Patrick planned and simply outlived them all.

An idea struck her. But no, _it’s completely foolish. We’ll be dead before we manage it._

Yet her eyes sought out the perfect spot – a wide white oak just ahead, only 15 meters. They had enough steam for that distance. The branches close to the ground were thick, strong enough to stand on, thinning as they reached higher into the sky. Still, even the wiry branches at the top would probably hold them if they balanced properly.

She didn’t bother asking if Mika could climb. With death at her feet, Beth figured Mika could have climbed a smooth metal wall. Instead she steered them toward the tree, nodding to show Mika where they were headed, what she had planned.

Something like resolve lit itself in Mika’s eyes. Or perhaps it was relief that the run was at an end; either way it spurred her forward.

Beth pulled her knife out from her hip – she killed one walker before, she could do it again. Besides, Mika would need time to get up the tree and she’d said it herself, she wasn’t much of a fighter. Not two weeks ago, Beth would have said the same about herself.

They reached the tree but Mika was too short to catch the first branch on her own. Grabbing her about the knees, Beth lifted, praying that the walkers were far enough away that she’d have a moment. Mika pulled herself up, clinging to the trunk for balance for a moment. She turned down to Beth, hand outstretched to help her up.

Beth shook her head, “No, get higher. I can get up on my own.” She pulled the backpack from her shoulders, “Take this!” She hurled it toward the girl who caught it – thankfully without toppling from the tree.

“Beth!” Mika screamed, pointing. Beth spun around – the herd was upon her.

One walker lunged, teeth gnashing wetly, spraying ichor onto Beth’s face. She threw her hand against the creature’s throat, her back pushing against the bark of the tree; still the thing came. Another at Beth’s side was trapped against the tangle of arms and legs. Beth slammed her knife into the walker’s forehead. Bone and flesh squelched grossly.

The walker dropped forward, against her chest.

They were pressing her in.

She knifed the walker on her left through the eye socket. The walker on the right, she brained with the handle of her blade.

Still they rushed her. Still she fought them off.

There were too many of them. She had yet to even get a moment to eye the branch above her head. She hoped Mika was high enough, far above unyielding fingers of the monsters. Beth drove her knife through the temple of another walker. They were beginning to pile up at her feet. Soon she would be trapped against the tree trunk, her arms were already feeling heavy – they would have her.

She hoped Mika would win then. Mika, the little girl everyone had cooed at, with her pretty blonde curls and her round cheeks – the girl no one had expected to win – who had warned them not to forget about her. It was better than Randall, at least. And maybe Mika could say something nice about her on the Victory Tour – maybe something about how she’d trusted Beth, even when she ought not to. 

_Clang, clang, clang!_

Beth’s head snapped up as the sounds of metal-on-metal seemed to rent the groans of the walkers. Mika had gotten high enough: she was nearly to the top of the tree – but she wasn’t, as Beth has expected, clinging to the safety of her perch. Instead, her legs were wrapped tightly around a limb, and her body was stretched along the branch, her stomach pressed against the bark. In her hand, dangling just above the heads of the walkers below was the rope from Patrick’s nest, the end now sporting two metal cups, jangling together.

The walkers were mesmerized. Some stumbled over each trying to reach the noisemaker. Their greying, fleshy hands reaching for it, though Mika kept it out of their grasp. Beth took the opportunity, pushing her knife back into her belt. The walkers she’d already killed had piled up and Beth climbed onto the heap as if it were a ladder, lifting her high enough to pull herself onto the first branch.

She hoisted herself higher: one branch, then another.

_Don’t look down_ , Daryl warned, _eyes on the sky_.

She lifted her heel to move to the next branch when bony fingers, their grip like iron, closed around the leather of her boot. She screamed as she jolted downwards. Her underarms caught on two branches, stopping her descent. For an instant, she dangled – one foot held by the walker – then her free boot found purchase on the tree.

She spun, carefully, trying to wrench her heel from the creature’s grasp. She kicked out, both hands holding tight to a branch above her head. The walker’s skull flung backwards, skywards; its cold lifeless eyes met hers and Beth shouted.

Those were _Patrick’s_ eyes.

She nearly fell off the branch. The walker righted itself, clawed higher – relentlessly toward her. The same dark hair – his _glasses_ – bile rose in her throat. It couldn’t be him, though, it just _couldn’t_. They wouldn’t do that – they _wouldn’t_.

His face was wasted, gaunt, hollow – hunger drove him now, far more than it ever had when he was alive.

Tears stung her eyes but she knew, Patrick or not, this walker wouldn’t stop coming. It was her or him – had always been since they’d gotten here. Beth jammed her heel at his skull. The base of her boot struck him, his head knocking against the tree trunk. She kicked her toe into his temple, crushing his skull between her foot and the tree.

With a final lurching groan, the walker that might have been Patrick tumbled back down to the ground.

She turned away, climbed. Finally, with a last heaving breath, she pulled herself onto a branch near Mika. For a minute, she didn’t move – all she could do was press her forehead against the trunk, her eyes dropping closed – she had to forget.

“They’re leaving,” Mika whispered; her voice suddenly near to Beth’s ear.

Beth looked down; Mika was right: the walkers seemed no longer interested in the girls trapped in the tree. They were all staring, unseeingly, back in the direction they’d come – though Beth could find no reason for their interest. Then, in a great wave, they all clambered away, wandering slowly – methodically – back toward the rocks, as if something was drawing them.

The girls sat, catching their breath, legs dangling from the branch now that the immediate danger had passed. Mika stuffed the rope back into Beth’s backpack and Beth suspected that the cups had been returned to her own bag.

“That was pretty smart,” Beth nodded at the rope as Mika pushed it in the sack.

Mika shrugged, “My sister used to make stuff like this all the time – used to like to tease me with it; figured it’d probably work on the biters too.”

“Well,” Beth continued, nudging her shoulder against Mika’s, “If it weren’t for your quick thinkin’, I would ‘a been walker-bait – so thanks. This is the second time you saved my life already.”

Mika colored, embarrassed, and stuttered out a quiet _welcome_.

Beth grinned – she missed the kids back home – “I’m thinkin’ I probably made the best choice of allies.”

Mika still looked embarrassed, but when she glanced up there was something else behind her eyes, “It’s not like you got much of a choice.”

It occurred to Beth then, suddenly, that she couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard the anthem or seen the pictures of the fallen tributes projected across the sky. She had no idea how many tributes were even left.

“Mika,” Beth started, slowly, “who’s still out there?”

“Well, it’s you and me, and the girl from Five, the boy from Eight – oh, and the boys from One and Two,” Mika counted them off on her fingers as she named each.

Beth couldn’t remember what the girl from Five or the boy from Eight were like during training or their interviews, but she didn’t care. All she cared about was one very important fact: Randall and Ben were still alive. Her jaw tightened and her skin prickled – she could feel his hands on her again.

“Come on,” Beth nudged Mika’s arm, nodding at the ground, “We outta go. No tellin’ when they might come back.”

She moved down the tree carefully, eying the pile of bodies at the base. His was right on top – Patrick. Only not Patrick. Because it couldn’t be him. People would never stand by it: turning the dead tributes into walkers – there would be riots in the streets.

_Well_ …the thought struck her bitterly. There ought to be riots in the streets already. Hell, Terminus ought to have been overthrown years ago – but they weren’t. They ruled and every year each district still sent their children to die. All for the hope of an extra scrap of food.

Hope was a dangerously powerful thing.

When she dropped to the ground, she paused – only a moment – caught in the glassy look of his dead eyes. Her chest hurt then and it wasn’t from the exertion on her bruised ribs. She wanted to sit down and cry – but they didn’t get to do that anymore.

“It’s not really him,” Mika’s voice was small and gentle in the stillness.

Beth blinked, tore her gaze away from the bodies. “Hmm?”

“Your friend – Patrick,” Mika’s eyes flickered toward the pile, “That’s not really him. It’s just meant to scare you.”

Beth nodded, humming in response. She knew this, of course. “It worked.”

“Yeah,” Mika eyes skimmed the trees around them, “This place has a way of doin’ that.”

Beth turned her back on the bodies, letting the image of Patrick – crumpled and rotting – slip away into nightmares, “Let’s find someplace to rest tonight. We got ‘a be ready.”

Mika twisted her bag onto her shoulders, eyebrows drawn down in curiosity, “Ready for what?”

Beth’s jaw tightened as she pulled herself up to her full height, “Tomorrow, one of us is goin’ home.”

* * *

Their fire burned low in the hole Beth had dug out of the dirt. The sun was just barely setting over the treetops and soon it would be too dark to keep the blaze going. No one needed to know exactly where in the arena they were.

“Beth,” Mika murmured. Her voice was soft as she drifted on the edge of sleep.

“Hmm?” She’d been poking at the fire with a large branch, something to keep her hands busy while she thought through her plans.

“What’re we gonna do tomorrow?” Mika’s head was pillowed on her arms. She looked infinitely younger in that moment.

For one horrible second, an image from her head flooded Beth’s vision: of Mika, from her nightmare, in that plain pine box, blood seeping from her yellow shirt. _Tomorrow – that could be real_. Mika might die tomorrow. Hell, Beth might die tomorrow.

She thought of her father then, and Maggie and Glenn; she thought of Daryl, who was waiting for her to come home – to be the first to come back. But if it was Beth, then Mika would be going home in a box.

_Don’t think about it_.

“Randall’s still out there,” Beth remarked, “I think it’s about time that changed.”

“You think we can do it?” Mika’s voice was faint now. She was nearly asleep.

“I think we can try,” she answered. She didn’t even let herself entertain the other possibility. One of the two of them was going home tomorrow – even if Beth had to throw herself to the walkers to make it happen.

“Beth?”

“Yeah?”

“What’s it like in District Eleven?” She sounded so much like one of the children who liked to follow Beth around at school. It wasn’t difficult to imagine Mika dressed in school clothes, her hair brushed, a smile on her face as she danced around to one of Beth’s clapping songs.

“Well, what’s it like in Seven?”

“Dirty,” Mika replied shortly. “There’s saw dust everywhere and everythin’s kind of gray or brown.”

Beth pictured the brightness of Eleven in the springtime: of the wildflowers in the meadows, the colors of the peach blossoms, the birds singing in the trees.

“Well, it’s not like that,” she said. “Eleven can get dreary, sure, but mostly it’s colorful. It’s like a paintin’ sometimes.”

“It sounds like a dream I had once,” Mika sighed. Her eyelids were shut and her voice not much more than a whisper, “I think I’d like to go there one day.”

Beth couldn’t help the sad smile that curled around her mouth, “Maybe you will.”

 

 

 Full dark set in around them. Then the anthem played. Another two gone. It was just the four of them then: Beth and Mika and Randall and Ben.

_Good_ , she thought, laying on her back and staring up at the artificial stars above them.

Come sunset, one of them would be going home and wouldn’t be Randall.

* * *

 

“You think this going to work?” Mika asked, looking nervously at the wire by her ankles.

“We know it’s not one ‘a the flame-thrower ones so it’s probably the walkers,” Beth answered, tucking her backpack into a bush at the base of a nearby tree. She wouldn’t need it after today and it would only slow her down – still, she didn’t want Randall or Ben finding it and realizing they were close. She pulled her piece of jasper from one of the zippers and slipped it into her pocket. Her blanket lay in the dirt beside the rest of her things – it pained her to have to use it, she’d much rather have left it here, but it was important to the plan.

“Here,” she handed Mika a chunk of the broken glass box. “Use it like a knife. Go for the places that bleed a lot – if you cut someone here,” she pointed across her thigh, “they’ll bleed out real quick.”

Mika gulped but took the chunk of glass, careful not to slice the skin of her hands.

“So you remember the plan?” Beth asked, pulling the handle of her knife out from behind her shirt.

Mika nodded, “I lure the walkers and you get Randall and Ben. Then, whatever the walkers don’t get, we take care of.”

Beth pretended not to hear the hesitancy in Mika’s voice at the end. They both knew what was going to happen: one of them was going to die. They hadn’t even discussed what would happen if they both managed to survive Beth’s plan.

It was time to go. It was just a matter of leaving now.

“All right,” Beth started, her hands dropping to Mika’s small shoulders, “You be careful, okay? Don’t take any unnecessary risks. If it doesn’t work out, you run like hell and hide. And no matter what you hear from me, you stick to the plan, got it?”

Mika looked on the verge of tears but she nodded resolutely anyway.

“One of us is going home, Mika,” she added. Then, without allowing herself a moment, she pulled the little girl to her chest, wrapping her arms tightly around Mika’s thin form.

_This might be the last time I ever hug somebody_ , it made her squeeze just a bit harder. If this was the last hug she was ever going to give, it was going to be a good one.

When they pulled away a moment later, Beth took a deep breath and steeled herself. “You ready?”

Mika nodded again.

“Good, wait for my signal.” Then she turned on her heel and walked into the forest with nothing but her blanket, the jasper and the knife at her belt.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beth has a plan. Who knows if it's going to work. Well, I do - I know if it's going to work - but that's because I have been planning this last chapter since day one. I can only hope it lives up to expectations - both yours and mine!
> 
> As always, thank you to everyone who has stuck with this story, especially since it has taken so unbelievably long to write. Thank you to those who have favorited, left kudos, liked it, shared it, followed it, bookmarked it, whatever! You all mean the world to me!


	15. Parting of Ways

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end has come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Mentions of suicide and attempted suicide. 
> 
> This is just about it, folks. Thank you to everyone who has stuck with this story, considering how long it's taken to write. You have all been fantastic. So the showdown is here. I hope this lives up to everyone's expectations. Also, the structure of this chapter is a little different, don't be confused.

**FIFTEEN.**

“My goodness, what a show! You were fantastic of course,” Caesar leaned forward, conspiratorially as he always did. “Tell us – what was it like? Those final few hours. Take us back there.”

She blinked slowly. Hard swallow. _Be honest_ – _but not too honest_. _Don’t tell them everything_. Fake smile. Fake confidence. Be proud. Be a Victor. Give them what they want. Give them drama. _Lie_. _Lie to save everyone._

“I was terrified,” she began. That was true, the rest – _save everyone_. “But I was sure one of us was gonna win.”

 

 

They were going to die. This plan – it was going to get them both killed. Either by Randall’s hand or the walkers they were letting free; someway, this was going to be it. Not that there was any other option – if they didn’t strike now, they would be hunted down and slaughtered in their sleep. At least this way, in a fight, they stood a slim chance.

Very slim.

The leafy bushes around the field where they’d first been dropped hid her well enough, but Beth crouched low to the ground anyway. The container was still there, open and inviting – definitely a trap. She’d been sitting in this brush for twenty minutes now, waiting to catch a good glimpse of Ben and Randall, waiting to send up the signal for Mika.

But they hadn’t been around. She hadn’t seen either of them at all. She had a horrible thought that they were out in the forest, maybe closing in on Mika at this very moment. Maybe they were slicing her up this very moment – no, there would be cannon. Maybe they were doing something worse.

She knew what Randall was capable of and she feared he could do far more as well.

Wherever they were, it wasn’t here. She needed to find them for the plan to work. Draw them in, draw the walkers, let the carnage erupt while they were safely out of the way; it was a completely foolish plan and she knew Daryl was probably banging his head against the table. It probably wasn’t going to work at all – Beth just hoped that it was a walker that got them or the fight. She refused to be a plaything for Randall’s sick fantasies. If it came down to it, she’d off herself before he got the chance.

The real question, the one she was studiously ignoring in the back of her head, was what if it worked. What if she and Mika survived and both Ben and Randall were taken out by the walkers? What would happen then? She couldn’t kill Mika; she wouldn’t. She wondered if Mika could kill her – Mika was stronger than she looked, more resilient than even Beth had given her credit for, but the hug they’d shared before parting ways – she wasn’t sure Mika was capable of it either.

But it wasn’t time to think about that; they could figure it out later. None of it mattered if they didn’t finish off Ben and Randall first. And it was time to go. Ben and Randall weren’t here but that didn’t mean they weren’t close by. Her signal for Mika would lure them too.

Keeping low to the ground, she turned from the field and ducked back into the woods. She’d already found the tree she was going to use. Unlike Patrick’s, which had been so grand and full of life, this was brittle, cracking, dry and dead. It was perfect and strangely appropriate for what it was being called to do.

Beth pulled the blanket from her bag. It made her think of Daryl and Annette, of Maggie and her father and Glenn. She imagined the people of District Eleven – her family and friends – picking through their belongings to send her this. She hadn’t thought about how much it must have cost them. Gifts weren’t cheap in the arena. She hated to ruin it.

She pulled out her shards of glass and glanced at the sky. For the last few days it had been bright, sun-lit and blue; today, it was the same dreary, miserable gray that it had when she’d first gotten the blanket. She hadn’t counted on that.

It didn’t matter, she told herself, kneeling in the dirt. She could do this anyway. She gathered the blanket up tightly, held the glass and mirror close enough that it might catch the weak light angling through the lenses she’d created.

“Come on,” she muttered. “Come on.”

Nothing. She knew the Game-makers could change the weather if they wanted and they must have heard her and Mika discussing the plan. Surely this was their way of telling her off. It made sense – they didn’t want a horde of walkers taking out the competition. The Games were a spectacle for the tributes – fight to the death, that’s how it worked. They wanted her to have to fight Randall.

It would be a hell of a show after all.

She threw the glass aside, frustrated. It clinked weakly against a nearby bush and dropped into the dirt. If she couldn’t light the blanket, she couldn’t light the tree. The plan would fail – already had. Mika wasn’t far off, she should just go find her – they could work out something new. Find a different way to lure Ben and Randall without putting themselves close to enough to be killed.

She leapt to her feet, head turned up to the sky. The shiny material of the parachute stood out against the dullness of the sky. She didn’t even let it touch down, grabbing it mid-descent, tearing into it. The metal lid flipped open with a click. Inside were two individual matches.

They might have been Daryl’s own personal ones.

She could have cried at the sight of them. Dropping the box, Beth dropped back down in front of the blanket. She grabbed a rock, rough from erosion even in the manufactured world of the arena, and struck the first match. It sparked quickly, the tip flaring to life.

She lowered it toward the blanket – too quickly. In a rush that made her stomach drop, the little flame flickered weakly and then vanished. The red blunted end of the match was blackened, unusable.

She had once chance left.

Beth took the other match between her fingers. _Hold your breath_. She took a moment, squeezed her eyes shut tight. She could do this. Steady. She struck the second match. It caught. She held it, praying. Move slowly.

For a moment the flame flickered. She inhaled sharply.

It didn’t go out.

_Thank you_.

She lowered it carefully toward the blanket. One moment against the fabric. Two. _Please light, please_. Three moments. Smoke – a thin tendril, just a wisp. Four. Yellow flames. Catching not burning. The blanket was on fire. Spreading rapidly. She pushed to her feet, held the blanket away from her clothing. Took a breath – a hope and a prayer – and tossed the blanket up into the dead branches of the tree.

It only took a minute before the wood – dry and baked under the artificial sun – caught the flames. Higher and higher they rose, up the tree, running along the limbs that stretched toward the other oaks and birches.

The forest was on fire.

Beth only hoped Mika had been successful too. She wouldn’t be able to stay here long, already she could feel the heat from the flames spreading around her.

Back to the field. Back to where is began.

A fitting place to end.

The container rose up quickly in front of her as she broke through the trees. She scanned the edges of the woods – Mika was meant to come along the side, around the flames. The fire was moving faster than Beth had predicted though.

Mika could be caught, trapped behind the line of fire.

And Randall and Ben – where were they? Not that it mattered; soon everyone would be here or be dead. No sign of any of them, no sign of walkers. No cannon blast. The container was the safest place to hide – an easy spot to wait: the perfect trap.

She’d never been hunting before but she understood how it all worked. Stalking your prey, that was the hardest. The least likely to succeed because animals have a sixth sense when they’re being followed – just like humans. But if you lure them, guide them along the path you want – walkers on one side, fire on the other – they’ll eventually come right to you.

All you have to do is wait.

She held tightly to her knife, gripping the handle. Her pulse was quick – a rapid staccato beating through her veins – but she was strangely calm. It was as if she’d just come to accept what was going to happen – death or killing – and she wasn’t afraid anymore.

_I can make it._ She’d shouted those words at Daryl, so determined to make him believe that she could be like this – like the person she felt like now. _I can win_.

Slow, steady steps toward the container, keeping her eyes on the forest edges. They’d all be coming soon and only Mika would know she was hidden in the container, waiting. Randall and Ben would reach the field, flee to the container to keep them safe from the walkers and she’d be ready for them.

“Beth!” the piercing scream seemed to reverberate through Beth’s skull. She whipped around, blonde ponytail flying into her face, blocking her view for an instant.

Mika tumbled from the trees, walkers stumbling behind her. Walkers on fire.

Beth reared back in horror, over-balancing and falling onto the dusty ground. She hissed in pain, her tailbone whining at the impact. _Push through it_ , she commanded, rolling onto her stomach and heaving herself off the ground. Mika was running toward her, blood from a gash on her forehead dripping over her eyebrow, an obvious limp in her gait.

“They’re coming!” Mika shouted and Beth wasn’t sure if she meant the walkers or the boys but it didn’t matter now. She met the little girl halfway, let her lean against Beth’s side. The scene before them was terrible: walkers coming from the trees, pouring onto the field. Some collapsed, their flesh sizzling away; others, alight, stumbled forward, reaching flaming hands toward their prey.

The fire was spreading; already most of the ring of trees around the field had gone up – a great yellow and orange glow. More shouts, this time from human voices, erupted from the trees. A moment later, first Ben and then Randall toppled onto the field, a sea of walkers behind them.

“Get ready,” Beth ordered, setting her feet and letting Mika stand on her own. She was pleased to see the chunk of glass in Mika’s hand, poised, ready to strike.

Ben was back on his feet first, Randall only moment behind. He caught sight of Beth and she saw confusion flash across his eyes. Then there was only anger, hatred and a bitter realization that this was her – the walkers, the fire, this was all her. He moved to rush toward her but a walker caught him by the back of his shirt, pulling him off his feet. Slash, stab, slash again – the walker fell.

More walkers, more being torn apart by Randall. Steadily he moved toward Beth. She stood her ground, ready for him.

Ben heaved a walker away from his face, driving the point of a knife into the top of it’s skull. Then his gaze turned toward them and Beth watched as his eyes went wide. Groans behind them – she spun around, more walkers were forcing themselves through the flames, stumbling over the fallen bodies that were creating a break in the fiery ring.

They were closing in on both sides now.

“Get the girls; we’ll feed them to the geeks!” Randall shouted, pointing at Beth and Mika. Ben threw aside another walker and took off toward them.

“Mika,” Beth called, “look out.”

Randall dropped his shoulder and threw himself into Beth’s chest. They landed in a heap – Beth’s back slamming against the ground. Her whole chest felt like it was on fire – a horrible, burning feeling. She couldn’t breathe. Her vision swam, blackness fading in and out. She knew Randall was above her – he didn’t need to play with her now, he just needed to kill her.

Suddenly, he jerked backwards, his head pulling up at a sharp angle. Mika had two small arms wrapped tightly around Randall’s throat. His fingers grasped at her bare skin, cutting deep scratches into her skin. Blood prickled in the lines, but still Mika held tightly.

“Get off!” Ben growled, gripping Mika’s hair and ripping her away from Randall, who fell sideways, choking.

Mika hollered as Ben tossed her to the ground. She scuttled across the grass, pulling her glass shard from the dirt where she’d dropped it. He kicked out, catching her in the side, flipping her onto her back. She coughed pitifully. He lurched forward, ready to attack again when a grisly face appeared over his shoulder, digging rotten teeth into the base of his neck.

He screamed, blood spurting from the wound.

“Randall!” he shouted, trying to force the walker off him. “Randall, help me!”

Randall, who had been trying to catch his breath, on all fours, glanced up. Ben was still struggling, his eyes wide, frightened, begging Randall for help. Randall stared and even as Beth was getting back onto her feet, she saw the cold sweep through Randall’s eyes.

All alliances end.

Ben knew it too. Even as the walker tore at his throat once more, he stared at Randall.

The cannon echoed through the arena.

The walkers were coming stronger now, surging across the field, fewer falling to the flames. There were more than the dozen from before. There might have been a hundred for all it mattered. All Beth knew was that they needed to get to safety. 

The container was still their best hope. She pulled Mika to her feet – Randall was right behind them, too distracted by the walkers clawing at his ankles – and sprinted as fast she could toward the container. Randall sprinted alongside her.

Their eyes met. For the first time she saw real fear in his face. He didn’t want to be ripped apart by one of those things either.

But he would gladly give her up to them same as he had with Ben.

The three of them crashed into the side of the container, the corrugated metal bruising her shoulder – shift – turn – sprint alongside it. Get inside – get inside. Beth pushed Mika forward. Randall was a moment behind.

“What d’ we do Beth?” Mika cried, panicked.

The container was still filled with empty boxes, crates that had once held weapons, food and other supplies for the tributes. She raced toward one, pushing it into the opening of the container, “Get anything you can – stack it all up, it’ll keep them out!”

Mika did as she was told, running around the container. Randall stood still, away from them. Beth glared at him, “Help me!” He didn’t move. “D’ you want t’ die?”

He made a face but surged forward. The three of them stacked the crates and anything else they could find, piling it as high as they could reach. The wall shook ominously. The walkers had reached the container. Yet the barricade held. Beth breathed.

_Thank god._ Then she felt the tension creep back up her spine. He was behind her, staring at her. She could feel it. She pulled her knife from her belt. He shifted on his feet. The reprieve was over.

She turned, slowly.

Randall jumped at her and she swung. The knife point caught along his chest, not deep enough to slow him down. He leapt backwards though, out of her reach again. _Protect Mika_. He darted forward, one step, his fist flying. His knuckles cracked against her jaw and she tasted blood. The inside of her cheek was shredded.

Beth stabbed and Randall dodged. He had no weapon but he didn’t need one. His determination made him brutal, lethal. He would kill her with his bare hands. Somewhere behind her, Mika was whimpering.

Back and forth – one step, dodge him. Kick, punch, duck. It was a blur of movement.

She slashed – Randall caught her wrist, pulled her closer. She slammed her forehead into his nose. He dropped her wrist to clutch at his face. There was blood running freely across his skin, he smudged it with the back of his hand. His eyes were blazing. He rushed her, hand closing around her throat, forcing her back against the container wall. The other hand pinned her knife over her head.

She clawed at his hand. They’d done this before. She was back there – back at that tree – back where he was pressing himself against her, threatening the most horrible things. There was no Patrick to save her this time. The voices in her head were silent too – no Daryl to get her out of this.

_I will not die like this._ She dug her nails into his wrist. _I survived. I made it_. She clawed at his face. _I fought walkers and tributes. I am here_. _I will not die_. She jabbed her thumb into his eye socket. Randall screamed and dropped her. Beth slumped against the wall, breathing sharply.

Only a minute, seconds really. She adjusted her grip on the knife. Randall was pressing a palm over his blinded eye, sobbing in pain. Beth tightened her jaw. She would end this now. She took a step toward him, ready.

“Beth!” She spun. Mika was no longer hiding in the corner. She was at the mouth of the container, three walkers had broken through; they were dead at her feet. But a fourth was tearing at her. There were already gashes across her face and rips in her clothing. Another walker grabbed her arm, chewing into the flesh. She screeched. “Beth!”

Beth leapt forward only to be hauled backward – Randall had a hold of her shirt. He threw her backwards into the wall again.

“Don’t you get it?” he hissed, his voice manic. “You can’t save her. No one can.” Mika screamed again. “None of us are even _worth_ saving. We’re all gonna die.”

He lunged at her. But she was ready. She caught him right under the rib cage as he crashed into her. He stumbled, surprise widening his eyes. She ripped the knife from his gut and he tripped into the wall, pressing his back against it, staring at her. Blood was spreading across his front, red and sticky. He clutched at it, trying in some horrible way to put it all back.

“The only one of us who’s gonna die in here,” she breathed, stepping toward him, “is you.”

She drove the knife up into the soft skin under his chin. For a moment he stuttered and then the lights went out in his eyes. He slumped to the ground in a heap. She stepped back, exhaling, shaky. Her eyes squeezed shut.

It was done.

There was silence in the container. The sounds of walkers had faded – the creatures recalled back to their cages.

_Mika_.

Beth spun around again. The wall of crates had stopped rattling, half-destroyed by the walker herd. Five were dead on ground among the fallen boxes. And Mika – sweet Mika – sat among them.

Beth dropped to her knees beside the little girl. For a moment there was nothing and then – her chest rose slowly. A sob of relief tore from Beth’s throat. Mika’s eyes cracked open – the effort it took written clearly in the strain of her face. She smiled faintly.

“Did we do it?” There was blood covering the front of her shirt. Her face was torn, scratched into ribbons. The bite on her arm was oozing blood even as she pressed it against her stomach. And her leg – _God_ – Beth hadn’t seen it before, the reason for her limp: something had sliced her cleanly across the thigh.

There had been plenty of injuries like that in District Eleven.

Mika wasn’t going to survive much longer.

Beth’s smile didn’t reach her eyes but she nodded anyway, trying to be reassuring, “Yeah, we did.”

“That’s good,” Mika said. Her voice was growing soft, like she was falling asleep. Beth bit her lip and swallowed hard. Her vision was starting to blur, wet tears welling in her eyes.

“Hey, Beth?” her eyelashes fluttered on her cheeks.

“Yeah?” she brushed Mika’s hair back from her forehead, sticky with blood.

“Would you take me outside? I wanna see the sky.”

Beth blinked furiously, “Mm-hmm.”

Carefully, she slipped an arm under Mika’s legs and another around her back. With a grunt of effort, Beth lifted the little girl off the floor of the container. She hedged her way slowly over the walker corpses and fallen crates and finally, the grey light hit her face.

She set Mika down against the side of the container. She was so pale. Beth kneeled in the grass beside her, the ring of fire burning around them.

Beth shook her head. It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair – and she got it, she knew: the Games weren’t fair. They weren’t about winning or losing. They weren’t about going home or getting a fancy house or being a hero to your District. They weren’t about the districts at all. They were about Terminus and they were about power. They were about showing everyone who had the power and who didn’t.

The people didn’t.

Out there in the world, there was no power but what the Governor gave away. Even the Terminites lived under his yoke. And in the arena, his rules reigned. Her friends died because of him; because he decided who lived and who died. Sure, it looked like the tributes had control – they did the killing – but it was as much of an illusion as anything else here.

Shawn had been taken from her. Patrick had come here to die. Daryl had lost a brother – had lost so many other children since. And everyone had just let it happen. The whole world had just let it happen.

And the rules of the Games said Beth had to let Mika die – that she had to be the victor.

She looked up into the sky. Every camera in the arena was on her face, right now.

She had all the power.

There had to be a victor.

Beth looked at Mika – still breathing. She pulled her knife from her belt, still dark with Randall’s blood, and wiped it across her pant-leg, cleaning it. She nodded to herself and held the blade tightly in her fingers.

“Forgive me Daddy,” she whispered but she knew he would hear her – they would make sure of it.

The knife blade stung bitterly as she dragged it across her wrist. Blood welled instantly, bright and red against the paleness of her skin. She watched for only a moment before switching hands, cutting deep into the skin of her other wrist. The knife fell from her grip and blood ran down her fingers.

_It’s gonna be okay now_ , she knew. Her head was getting dizzy and somewhere in the back of her mind she knew that this was happening quickly – quicker than it might have back home. Exhaustion, starvation, all of her other injuries – she’d probably be dead in minutes.

The thought was soothing, not frightening.

She looked up at the sky again and let herself drift back onto the grass. The sounds of the fire were getting farther and farther away now, like her head was under water. She smiled lazily, letting her head roll to the side.

She knew Daryl would be there with her. He always was. His hair was in his eyes but she could see the blue of his irises anyway. He was lying in the grass with her. She wished they could have done this back home – in her meadow. She would have sung to him – all the songs she knew – until the weight had eased itself off his shoulders and he could walk like a free man.

She would have made him flower necklaces – and he would have worn them, she knew. He would have grumbled about it, of course, but he would have done it. And they could have walked through the marketplace together. And maybe he would have taught her how to hunt.

She would have liked that.

Daryl didn’t say anything but he watched the sky with her.

The world was getting heavier. Her eyelids were lowering and she wasn’t afraid.

She would see Shawn again and Patrick and Annette, maybe ever her own mother. They would be waiting for her. And then she would wait – for Maggie and Glenn, for her father. And when Daryl showed up, finally, after the world ended, she’d be waiting for him too.

Beth felt the world shift, as if she were weightless. She’d left her body behind.

Heaven would be beautiful.

There was a cannon in the distance and she knew it was for her.

 

 

   
“Beth?” Caesar’s voice broke through her memory, startling her. She blinked, trying to clear her head.

She smiled again, as false as before, “Sorry, I got a little lost there. Where was I?”

Caesar gave her his most sympathetic look, “Of course, we all understand. You had just been lifted out of the arena by the helicarrier.”

“Oh,” she laughed foolishly. It made her stomach lurch in disgust, “right.”

 

 

  
There was something warm surrounding her, cocooning her. And there was a light – bright but not harsh – pulsing overhead, bathing her. Perhaps this was Heaven – not a place but a feeling. Perhaps it was truly a sense of safety, of warmth, light – honest peace.

She could spend eternity like this.

Then the noises reached her ears, picking through her consciousness. Mechanical, hollow, loud; she doubted Heaven had sounds like this. And then the pain started: just a prickle – her chest, her ankle, her wrists – but it was there. She was aware of it.

There was no pain in Heaven.

She opened her eyes. The ceiling above her wasn’t her bedroom in District Eleven. Maggie wasn’t curled up beside her, rubbing circles on her back or brushing delicate fingers through her hair. Their father wasn’t snoring quietly on the other side of the room.

This was the Terminus Tower and she was alone.

Beth sat up slowly, swinging her legs toward the floor. The ground was cold and she realized her feet were bare. She hadn’t felt the coolness of industrial tiles against her skin in a while – it felt like centuries. She pushed out of bed and wandered slowly toward the window.

The city of Terminus was spread out below her. From this height, the people looked no bigger than ants but she could tell they were celebrating, enjoying themselves. There was a party going on in Terminus. She pulled the shade closed.

People were talking outside her door. She could hear their voices, although they were speaking in low tones. She moved toward the sound, sliding her door open quietly. They didn’t want to wake her probably.

She wandered into the lounge.

Rowan was there, dressed in black, and Gabriel too, both sitting on the low couches. They rushed to their feet when they noticed her, sad smiles on their faces. They pitied her.

“Oh, Beth,” Rowan’s voice was gentle but all Beth heard was the sound of a Terminite – someone who would never lose what she’d lost. Someone who’d never suffer or have children who’d suffer the way she had.

Daryl was standing across the room. He watched her carefully, stock still. She stared back at him. His was the only face she wanted to see.

“Mika?” her voice cracked. She knew the answer before he shook his head. She was here after all.

Daryl’s hand shifted, just slightly, in her direction and it was all she needed to rush to him. She drove herself against his chest, clinging to his shirt, tears flooding from her eyes. For a moment he didn’t move and then his arms wrapped around her, crushing her to him.

It really was just them now.

 

 

   
“So tell me, Beth,” Caesar started, leaning back in his chair. “What made you do what you did? _Why_ did you cut your wrists?”

 

 

   
“They’re gonna make you talk about it,” he said, resting his elbows on the railing. His arm brushed against hers as she stood next to him on the balcony.

She nodded because she knew that. They always made the victors watch the feeds and talk about their feelings during certain big moments from the Games. But she didn’t want them to know how she was feeling – the things she’d survived, that they’d put her through – they didn’t get to take her soul too.

“I don’t want t’ tell them anything,” she muttered, picking at the cement railing. The Remake Center had cleaned her up while she’d been unconscious. Her hair had been trimmed, her nails redone, her skin smoothed back to flawlessness. The only thing left – the only thing that reminded her it was _real_ – was a scar on her left wrist. Daryl had made them keep it and Gabriel had a friend in the Center who owed him a favor.

She touched the thin white line. If she pressed hard enough she could almost feel the knife blade cutting across her flesh or the blood flowing down her fingertips.

“Why’d you do it?” Daryl asked, eyeing the scar.

She stared at it, “They needed a victor. That’s the only way the Games work. I didn’t want to be their prize. And Mika was dying – if both of us were gone, no victor.”

He gave her a half grin, pride in his eyes, “Hopin’ to start a revolution?”

She glanced at him, “Maybe.”

He huffed but it might have been a laugh, turning back toward the city. They stood in silence for few minutes. He didn’t look at her when he said, “Ya can’t tell ‘em that.”

She grinned a little, despite herself. “I know.”

“You did somethin’ in there – somethin’ they ain’t happy about,” he explained. There was a warning in his voice. She understood: the dangerous part wasn’t the dying in the arena; it was the living in the world after you got out.

“What d’ I do?” she asked. Where once her voice might have sounded childlike, now it was matter-of-fact, the innocence was gone; the arena had taken that from her too.

Daryl looked at her then, stared right at her in that way he had that made her skin feel like it was on fire, “You lie.”

 

 

   
She sniffled but her tears were as fake as her smile had been, “I wasn’t thinkin’ real clear, to be honest. All’s I knew was I really wanted that little girl to go home. I looked at her and I saw Sophia – the little girl I volunteered for – and it was like I’d got another chance to send Sophia home. I thought if I could just die before she did, she’d win and then they’d take care of her.”

She giggled sheepishly, waving her hand in embarrassment, “It was silly.”

“On the contrary,” Caesar touched a hand to her knee. She stared at it. “That’s such a brave thing, Beth. We all felt your pain in that moment, having to watch Mika go just like Patrick. Knowing you could do something to change the outcome – that is remarkable.”

She laughed again as the crowd erupted in cheers and hollers.

“Well, Beth Greene – it has been an honor to watch you compete,” he held out his hand to her and they both stood. “Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present the victor of the 74th Hunger Games, Beth Greene: the girl made of sunshine!”

The people of Terminus shouted her name.

Beth Greene.

She was going home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So what did you think? Love it, hate it, have no feelings about it? Yes, Mika died - we all knew it was coming. Canonical character deaths and all that. I'm sorry to all those people who were hoping it would go more like THG and both of them would get to live but I knew Beth was going to be the only victor when I started this. Also, I apologize if you uncomfortable with Beth's suicide - but her scar and coming back from her depression in the show was one of the things that I always made me love her so much and it really defines her character. I wanted it to be equally meaningful here. 
> 
> There will be one more chapter, an epilogue of sorts, that will heavily feature Beth and Daryl together if you're freaking out about them not having much together time.
> 
> As always, thank you to everyone who has read, commented, left kudos, favorited, followed or whatever else this story. I am beyond grateful - it has kept me writing through all of the difficult parts!


	16. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She’d hoped the farther she got away from that place – the closer she got to District Eleven – the more she’d feel like herself again, the more she’d feel like Beth Greene. But Daryl had been right: you don’t get to come back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it folks! To all of you who have been around since the beginning, those who joined halfway through, and those who just stumbled down this rabbit hole - thank you. Your comments and support helped me to push through writer's block on so many occasions. I never expected the response I received for this - honestly, I have been continually floored by how many people seem to have enjoyed this story. So thank you all.
> 
> All right, here we go!

**EPILOGUE.**

The wind was blowing her hair into her face. Little wisps of it kept getting stuck to her mouth or caught in her eyelashes. She refused to touch it though – she was still dressed like a Terminite doll: pretty white dress, peach blossoms woven in behind her ear. She felt as fake as everything in Terminus, even as the city itself was disappearing in the distance.

She’d hoped the farther she got away from that place – the closer she got to District Eleven – the more she’d feel like herself again, the more she’d feel like Beth Greene. But Daryl had been right: _you don’t get to come back_. They called her the girl made of sunshine but whatever light she’d had, she’d left it in the arena.

The sun was setting over the treetops – all bright pinks and oranges, shot with indigo and violet. It would be full dark soon and Rowan would come find her, send her into her compartment, order her to get some sleep; Beth knew she wouldn’t really sleep – as soon as she closed her eyes, the nightmares would start.

She’d seen enough terror to haunt her dreams for the rest of her life.

So she was hiding out here, hoping that Daryl wouldn’t give her away. He’d been keeping a close eye on her nearly every moment since she’d stumbled out of her bedroom at the Tower. He knew where she was right now, he could find her if he wanted.

She was actually surprised he was giving her space now. He’d been a shadow to her for the last two days. The only time she’d been away from him was when she’d disappeared into her room at night to pretend to sleep – and even then she was pretty certain he spent the night sitting outside her door.

“He was worried about you,” Gabriel explained as he’d dressed her in her Victory gown. “I don’t think he left those monitors for a moment the entire time you were in there; wanted to be close to you, I guess.”

She didn’t know what to think about that. Same as she didn’t know what to think about this pain in her chest that sparked up every time she thought about how their lives would diverge once they were back home. He’d be in his world, she’d be in hers, and they’d only meet once in a while – for the Victory Tour, certainly, but after that – she didn’t know. Once a year they’d end up back in Terminus together, mentors. The thought sickened her.

When had Daryl Dixon become the only person she felt comfortable with? It wasn’t as if their relationship before she’d gone into the arena had been pleasant for more than a few hours. In fact, the only cordial conversation they’d ever had was when she was demanding that he not keep her death on his conscience. Was it merely circumstance? Was it just because he was the only other person who could possibly know how she was feeling? Perhaps.

But it felt like something else too.

The train car door opened behind her and she didn’t need to turn around to know it was him. He walked up to the railing with her, leaning his forearms against it and lighting a cigarette.

“You okay?” he mumbled, cigarette stuck between his teeth.

She shrugged. Physically, yes; she was better than okay. Other than her scar, the Terminite doctors had left nothing amiss. All of her injuries had been healed and they’d even given her some high tech food supplements to counteract the toll starvation had taken on her body. Overall, she was in better condition, health-wise, than when she’d left home.

Everything else, however –

“I guess I just thought that leavin’ would make me feel better, y’ know? Like I might be myself again – but you were right – there ain’t no comin’ back from that,” she sighed.

For a minute, Daryl was silent then, “I don’t know. Maybe it ain’t so hard comin’ back if you got somethin’ t’ come back to.”

Beth breathed out a humorless laugh, “What’ve I got to come back to?”

Daryl shrugged, blowing a puff of smoke into the cool evening air, “Your dad, sister – that skinny kid she’s always with –”

Beth smiled, “Glenn.”

“Right, Glenn,” Daryl amended. “You got plenty a’ people back home who’re gonna get you through it. And maybe it’ll take a year or two – maybe the rest a’ your life – but you’ll get there. You’ll get back.”

“You’ve got to be quite the optimist while I been gone, Mr. Dixon,” she teased.

Daryl huffed, looking self-conscious, “Yeah, well. Some little pain in the ass told me I weren’t allowed t’ feel guilty anymore.” He smirked at her.

She held his gaze for a moment then looked at the trees fading over the hill as the train sped onward. He was right, of course. She had Maggie and Glenn, her father – they would all be there for her, no matter what. Even with all the terrible things they’d seen her do in the arena, she knew they’d help her.

But Daryl – who did he have to help him come back?

She was nervous to ask.

“What?” he grumbled. She looked at him, confused. “You got this look on your face.”

“Nothin’,” she said, feeling embarrassed. “It’s just: I got Maggie and my dad and Glenn but – what’s your somethin’ t’ come back to?”

A corner of Daryl’s mouth quirked upward, “Y’ know.”

“What?” she asked. His smile made her grin although she had no idea why. Perhaps because those looks were so rare for him, they couldn’t help but be contagious.

He shrugged again, looking away from her and mumbled something.

She rolled her eyes, “Don’t –,” she mimicked him. “What?”

When he turned back to her it was with that stare that seemed to reach into her soul. He didn’t say a word but that didn’t matter. His face said everything – everything and more. Her heart beat picked up – hammering so loud in her chest he could probably hear it.

It was her; she was his something.

“Oh,” she breathed. It was all she could manage.

She swallowed the nervous lump in her throat. She didn’t know what to say. She’d never let herself have even the possibility of this. But everything was different now. She’d survived – and he’d survived. There was no risk of one of them dying in the arena now, leaving the other heartbroken.

She ran her tongue along her bottom lip, suddenly so dry. His gaze dropped to her mouth.

She should say something or do something. _Anything_.

The train car door opened and Gabriel stepped out, pulling to a stop when he saw them, “Oh – I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

Daryl shifted away, uncomfortable. Beth blinked. The moment was over. She smiled at Gabriel, nervous and feeling foolish, “It’s um – it’s okay. Is everythin’ all right?”

Gabriel nodded, “Fine. Rowan wanted me to find you, tell you to get to bed.” He kept looking between her and Daryl. There was too much knowing in his brown eyes.

Beth nodded, “Of course. I’ll be right in.”

Gabriel hesitated a moment before he gave her a small grin and turned back inside, closing the door behind him. Beth looked back at Daryl. Whatever had passed between them was gone – and she really didn’t want it to be. She wracked her brain for anything, anything to get it back.

“I have nightmares,” she blurted. Feeling like an idiot, she added, “Whenever I try to sleep. I just – I see their faces, all ‘a them, even the ones I didn’t watch die. I make up these horrible ends for ‘em. And when I wake up, all I want to do is curl into a ball and cry.”

Daryl watched her carefully, understanding in his eyes.

“But then,” she continued, “then I hear you, sittin’ outside the door – don’t pretend you don’t – and I feel a little better.”

There were butterflies rushing around in her stomach.

“So I was thinkin’,” she couldn’t look at him, too certain she’d chicken out, “maybe if you were inside it might be even better.”

She glanced at him through her eyelashes. He looked uncertain, wary. His tone was warning, “Beth…”

The look on his face – _oh, Lord_.

“Just for sleepin’,” she rushed to clarify. “I just think I could sleep better with you there is all.”

Daryl hesitated. There seemed to be a war going on inside his head. She desperately hoped she would win. After a moment that felt far too long, he nodded slowly. She tried very hard to suppress the grin that spread across her face; it didn’t work real well.

Her compartment was the same one as before and it didn’t feel any more comfortable than it had the first night on the train. She pulled blankets off the bed and clothes from the hangers, arranging everything on the floor.

They lay down next to each other – close enough that she felt his safety, but far enough that Daryl didn’t get uncomfortable. Even still, he held himself so carefully that Beth thought he might actually snap from the tension.

She chuckled softly, her eyes drifting shut, “Just go t’ sleep, Daryl.”

This time she was certain when she heard him say, “G’night, Beth.”

* * *

The light of morning was grey as Beth slipped out of the house. The homes in Victor’s Village had enough bedrooms that she and Maggie didn’t have to share anymore, but that didn’t mean Maggie had lost her super-hearing. If she knew Beth was up and about at this hour. she’d make her sit down and explain where she was going.

She jogged down the steps, pulling her sweater tighter around her shoulders, and hurried toward the iron archway at the edge of the lane. Autumn was settling in quickly, although the days were still warm, and there were leaves crunching under her boots.

Beth slowed, tried to tread carefully over the ground, as silent as possible.

“You’re louder ‘an a herd ‘a cattle.” She glared at the back of Daryl’s head. He’d been leaning against the arch, smoking. Now he turned and smirked at her.

“You callin’ me a cow?” she questioned, hands landing on her hips.

He shook his head, “No – callin’ you a herd ‘a cows.” She punched him lightly in the shoulder, rolling her eyes.

“You keep that up, Mr. Dixon, and I ain’t gonna bother with you anymore,” she warned, falling into step as they walked down the road toward the rest of the town.

“Yeah? Who’s gonna teach you trackin’ then? Don’t see anybody else lining up to offer,” Daryl remarked, cheekily.

“Who says I still need teachin’? I’m getting’ pretty good,” she raised her chin confidently, “I probably don’t even need you anymore.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered. Beth laughed brightly. Some days the only time she ever felt right in herself was when she and Daryl were in the woods, following a hare or tracking deer.

They were the good days.

“Hey,” she started, looking at him, her voice serious, “Can we make a quick stop? I just got t’ do somethin’ b’fore we go out.”

Daryl nodded and let Beth take the lead.

The cemetery wasn’t far off their path, only a short way past the spot in the fence that they always snuck through into the woods. The great oak tree – over a hundred years old – still had more green leaves than brown when Beth and Daryl walked in.

She found the right marker quickly. It was the newest, after all, and closest to the gate. She’d been here a couple of times since they’d gotten back but she’d usually gone on her own. Today, Daryl stood next to her, close by her side.

She took a deep breath as she looked at Patrick’s name carved into the stone. It was time to let him go. She stuck her hand in her pocket and pulled out her piece of jasper. Once, twice, she rolled it in her fingers before stepping forward and placing the small green gem on top of the rough gravestone. It was as if a weight had lifted from her chest. Daryl watched her, as he always did, when she came back to his side.

They didn’t say anything. But Beth felt Daryl shift closer to her, his jacket sleeve brushing against her sweater. He still made her nervous, but a good nervous – a hopeful nervous. She’d never expected that when she’d watched him sitting on the stage in the square.

Beth slipped her hand into his, lacing their fingers together. He let her, even gave her hand a soft squeeze, comforting her.

He had told her that Maggie and Glenn and her dad were her something to come back to; that she was his.

The truth was: he was her something too.

They stood like that for a while, holding hands while the sun rose over the trees behind them. When Daryl glanced down at her, she smiled up at him.

“Ready t’ go?” he asked.

She nodded, “Ready.”

When they walked through the meadow behind her old house, Beth laughed, clear and sweet.

The birds were singing.

**THE END.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whelp. I'm sad it's over. Once again, thank you to everyone who ever decided to click on this story and especially to those who decided to keep giving it a chance despite month-long breaks in updates. You have all been amazing.


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